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Storm​-​birds

from Tanglefoot by RB Lonetree

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about

The Channel-billed Cuckoo is known as the “Storm-bird” by indigenous folks of Northern Australia, who call it thus because it arrives seasonally with the monsoon from Torres Strait. The bird is a very important totemic figure to a many tribes-folk in the far North of Australia

lyrics

Storm-birds

Baby we've been lashed to the wheel for so long
The whole game's rigged, loaded, unjust, plain wrong
Good people work their lives away
Sell their blood to The Company
The government keeps you dancing with a chair and whip
And calls this democracy

Don't tell me time is on our side, I know it's not
If we don't leave soon I fear we never will
I love you, baby, and In a better world that would be enough
But we're so tangled up and loaded down with debt and all this useless stuff

Chorus
What are we gonna do when the wolf comes calling?
And make no mistake, my pretty one, the wolf will come calling
We got debts and I can't keep stalling
I want to fly with you
But I fear we're falling

And all these things we once thought we once had to have
Well they weren't worth the fight
Well an Araukun man once told be, "friend" he said, "friend
"This country here, this country is for traveling light
Look at that storm-bird flying, he said,
He's my brother my totem my blood my kin
High upon the wind with nothing but his majesty
And the liberty of his flight

Well that brother couldn't take his own good advice
The game got him, baby, like it's getting you and me
But out there over the waves, somewhere above the sea
Maybe, just maybe, his spirit's flying free

And maybe the storm-bird is our totem too
Maybe we can break free and fly like that brother wanted too
He was a storm-bird, and you're a storm-bird too
Lets go ride the wind, over the ocean blue
Over the ocean blue

credits

from Tanglefoot, track released January 1, 2008
Fairley/Lonetree

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about

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RB Lonetree Nimbin, Australia

RB Lonetree, is a singer/song-writer, recording and performing musician. He also writes and publishes poetry, short stories and political essays.

RB Lonetree lives on a large farm with his partner and two children in Bunjalung country, near the town of Nimbin, on the far north coast of New South Wales, Australia. ... more

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