Cherokee Bend - Gordon Lightfoot

His father was a man who could never understand

The shame on the red man’s face

So they lived in the hills and they never came down

But to trade in the white man’s place

Early in the spring when the snow had disappeared

They came down with a bag of skins

In the fall of the year of 1910

Daddy died by the rope down in Cherokee Bend

Daddy didn’t like what the white man said

Bout the dirty little kid at his side

Daddy didn’t like what the white man did

Nor the deal or the way that he lied

There was blood on the floor of the government store

When the men took his daddy away

But the boy stayed back till he’d come to his end

Then he run like the wind from Cherokee Bend

Now the mother was alone and the winter was at hand

And she prayed to her spirit kin

It was warm in the lodge in the Kentucky hills

On the day when the boy came in

Then a blizzard came down and it covered up the door

Till they thought that it never would end

And he told her the tale of the terrible affair

In the government store down in Cherokee Bend

Daddy didn’t like what the white man said

Bout the dirty little kid at his side

Daddy didn’t like what the white man did

Nor the deal or the way that he lied

For three long days and three long nights

They wept and they mourned and then

She returned to her work and her weavin'

And they tried to forget about Cherokee Bend

Now the boy wasn’t big but he hunted what he could

And they lived for a time that way

But the food run low and the meat went bad

And she said to the boy one day

«I'm leavin' tonight and I never will return

From the land of my spirit kin

You must take what you need and trade what you can

For a red man’s grave down in Cherokee Bend»

It wasn’t very long till she closed her eyes

And he wrapped her in a robe

He found her a place on the side of a hill

And he buried her in the snow

Early in the spring he was seen comin' down

With his load lookin' ragged and thin

Not a year had gone by till he stood once again

In the government store down in Cherokee Bend

He was ten years tall and a redskin too

So he hadn’t much face to save

And the men sat around and they laughed and they clowned

At the talk of a criminal’s grave

Then a man from the east didn’t smile when he said

«you're the son of that indian scum

If you value your hide then you better abide

By the white man’s rules here in Cherokee Bend»

Daddy didn’t like what the white man said

Bout the dirty little kid at his side

Daddy didn’t like what the white man did

Nor the deal or the way that he lied

And he spit on the floor of the government store

And it served him to no good end

At the close of the day they had taken him away

To the white man’s school down in Cherokee Bend

It’s been twenty one years since the boy disappeared

Where he run to nobody knows

But they say he fell in with a man named Jim

And he rides in the rodeos

And they say he returns all alone to a place

Hidden deep in the Kentucky glen

And it’s pretty well known who hauled up the stone

To the grave on the hill above Cherokee Bend

Daddy didn’t like what the white man said

Bout the dirty little kid at his side

Daddy didn’t like what the white man did

Nor the deal or the way that he lied

There was blood on the floor of the government store

When the men took his daddy away

It was 1910 and they never had a friend

When he died by the rope down in Cherokee Bend

It was 1910 and they never had a friend

When he died by the rope down in Cherokee Bend