The Ballad Of Ira Hayes - Lyrics - Hazel Dickens
Hazel Jane Dickens was an American bluegrass singer, songwriter, double bassist and guitarist. Her music was characterized not only by her high, lonesome singing style, but also by her provocative pro-union, feminist songs. Cultural blogger John Pietaro noted that "Dickens didnât just sing the anthems of labor, she lived them and her place on many a picket line, staring down gunfire and goon squads, embedded her into the cause." The New York Times extolled her as "a clarion-voiced advocate for coal miners and working people and a pioneer among women in bluegrass music." With Alice Gerrard, Dickens was one of the first women to record a bluegrass album.
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Call him drunken ira hayes,
He won't answer any more;
Not the whiskey drinkin' indian,
Not the marine who went to war.
Gather 'round me people,
There's a story I would tell
About a brave young indian
You should remember well;
From the land of the pima indians -
A proud and noble band,
Who farmed the phoenix valley -
In arizona land.
Down their ditches for a thousand years -
The waters grew ira's people's crops,
Till the white man stole their water rights -
And their sparklin' water stopped.
Now ira's folks grew hungry -
And their land grew crops of weeds.
When war came ira volunteered -
And forgot the white man's greed.
Call him drunken ira hayes,
He won't answer any more;
Not the whiskey drinkin' indian,
Not the marine who went to war.
Well, they battle up iwo jima hill -
Two hundred and fifty men,
But only twenty seven lived
To walk back down again;
When the fight was over -
And old glory raised,
Among the men who held it high
Was indian ira hayes.
Call him drunken ira hayes,
He won't answer any more;
Not the whiskey drinkin' indian,
Not the marine who went to war.
Ira hayes returned a hero,
Celebrated through the land,
He was wined and speeched and honored,
Everybody shook his hand;
But he was just a pima indian,
No water, no home, no chance;
At home nobody cared what ira had done -
And when do the indians dance?
Call him drunken ira hayes,
He won't answer any more;
Not the whiskey drinkin' indian,
Not the marine who went to war.
Then ira started drinkin' hard,
Jail was often his home;
They let him raise the flag and lower it,
As you would throw a dog a bone;
He died drunk early one morning,
Alone in the land he'd fought to save;
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch -
Was the grave for ira hayes.
Call him drunken ira hayes,
He won't answer any more;
Not the whiskey drinkin' indian,
Not the marine who went to war.
Yeah! call him drunken ira hayes,
But his land is just as dry,
And the ghost is lying thirsty
in the ditch where ira died.
