Listen to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Cover Johnny Cash’s “As Long As The Grass Grows” for New Cash Tribute Album
One month from now will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Johnny Cash’s release of Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. At the height of the Civil Rights era in 1964, the album was released by Cash to add to the human rights spotlight the injustices done to Native Americans.
Earlier this year, producer/artist Joe Henry gathered together a cast of superb Americana artists (Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Steve Earle, and Norman and Nancy Blake, amongst others) to pay tribute to the album and the anniversary by recording a new album entitled Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited on SonyMasterworks. The album is out now.
To get a feel for the depth and quality on the tribute album, check out below (via Rolling Stone) Welch’s and Rawlings’ melodic modulation of (a la Bragg/Wilco to Guthrie’s poetry) Cash’s originally spoken-word cut As Long As the Grass Grows. Cash’s winning way with words (“Cornplanter can you swim?”) is on display in the telling of the Seneca tribe’s broken treaty and the dam that broke their hearts. Lake Perfidy indeed.
After listening to Welch and Rawlings, you can watch the Man in Black perform the original live with June Cash and Pete Seeger in , and the song’s lyrics are at bottom.
You can pick up this worthy album HERE and HERE.
As Long As The Grass Shall Grow
As long as the sun will shine as long as the grass shall grow
The Senecas are an Indian tribe of the Iroquois nation
Down on the New York Pennsylvania Line you’ll find their reservation
After the US revolution Cornplanter was a chief
He told the tribe these men they could trust that was his true belief
He went down to Independence Hall and there was a treaty signed
That promised peace with the USA and Indian rights combined
George Washington gave his signature the Government gave its hand
They said that now and forever more that this was Indian land
As long as the moon shall rise…
On the Seneca reservation there is much sadness now
Washington’s treaty has been broken and there is no hope no how
Across the Allegheny River they’re throwing up a dam
It will flood the Indian country a proud day for Uncle Sam
It has broke the ancient treaty with a politician’s grin
It will drown the Indians graveyards, Cornplanter can you swim?
The earth is mother to the the Senecas they’re trampling sacred ground
Change the mint green earth to black mud flats as honor hobbles down
As long as the moon shall rise…
The Iroquois Indians used to rule from Canada way south
But no one fears the Indians now and smiles the liar’s mouth
The Senecas hired an expert to figure another site
But the great good army engineers said that he had no right
Although he showed them another plan and showed them another way
They laughed in his face and said no deal Kinuza dam is here to stay
Congress turned the Indians down brushed off the Indians plea
So the Senecas have renamed the dam they call it Lake Perfidy
As long as the moon shall rise…
Washington Adams and Kennedy now hear their pledges ring
The treaties are safe we’ll keep our word but what is that gurgling
It’s the back water from Perfidy Lake it’s rising all the time
Over the homes and over the fields and over the promises fine
No boats will sail on Lake Perfidy in winter it will fill
In summer it will be a swamp and all the fish will kill
But the Government of the USA has corrected George’s vow
The father of our country must be wrong what’s an Indian anyhow
As long as the moon shall rise (look up) as long as the rivers flow (are you thirsty?)
As long as the sun will shine (my brother are you warm?) as long as the grass shall grow.”