#PLEASE NOTE:   This file represents my impression of how Joni Mitchell 
plays this song from listening to the track on Joni Mitchell's Chalk Mark 
in a Rainstorm CD.  You may only use this file for private study, 
scholarship, or research.  Please email me <marian@jmdl.com> 
if you have a different impression of how it should be played. #

Lakota
Words & music by Joni Mitchell

Transcribed by:  Marian <marian@jmdl.com>

Tuning:  AAEGCE  (The two A's are an octave apart)
         Ao7354


000000
I am Lakota!  Lakota!


888000
looking at money man


000000
Digging the deadly quotas


888000
Out of balance, out of hand


777777
We want the land, lay down the reeking ore, don't you 
hear the shrieking in the trees?


10 10 10 10 00
Everywhere you touch the earth she's sore
Every time you skin her all things


777777
weep, Your money mocks us, Restitution what good can it do?


10 10 10 10 00
Kenneled in metered boxes, red dogs in debt to you


000000


2nd verse:

I am Lakota!
Lakota!
Fighting amongst ourselves
All we can say with one whole heart
Is we won't sell -
No we'll never sell
We want the land!
The lonely coyote calls
In the woodlands - footprints of the deer
In the barrooms - poor drunk bastard falls
In the courtrooms - deaf ears - sixty years
You think we're sleeping - but
Quietly like rattlesnakes and stars -
We have seen the trampled rainbows
In the smoke of cars

000000


Chorus:

888000
I am Lakota, Brave, Sun pity me


555050
I am Lakota, Broken, Moon pity me


111001
I am Lakota, Grave, Shadows stretching, Lakota


555050
Oh pity me


888000
I am Lakota, Weak, Grass pity me


555050
I am Lakota, Faithful, Rocks pity me


111001
I am Lakota, Meek, Standing water, Lakota


555050        888000   10 10 10 10 00
Oh pity me


3rd verse:

I am Lakota!
Lakota!
Standing on sacred land
We never sold these Black Hills
To the missile-heads -
To the power plants
We want the land!
The bullet and the fence - broke Lakota
The black coats and the booze - broke Lakota
Courts that circumvent - choke Lakota
Nothing left to lose
Tell me grandfather
You spoke the fur and feather tongues -
Do you hear the whimpering waters
When the tractors come?

000000


Repeat chorus


Outtro:  

000000
Sun pity me


888000
Mother earth, Mother, Moon pity me


000000
Father sky, Father, Shadows, Stretching on the forest floor


888000
Mother earth, Oh pity me, 


000000
Father sky, Father, Grass pity me


888000
Mother earth, Mother, Rocks pity me


000000
Father sky, Father, Water, Standing in a wakan manner


888000
Mother earth, Oh pity me


[Repeat the outtro while fading out]


© 1988 Crazy Crow Music (BMI)