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Louis Riel

 

The buffalo were gone when I was born.

But anyways who built this maze?

I've never called it anything but corn.

I've been on beer since I was six.

Living on a reservation,

only child playing pick up sticks

and stoned to hell before I'm ten.

While other kids were superman

I'd close my eyes and I'd pretend.

 

I'm Louis Riel.

Does my name ring a bell?

And my rebellion, it's going well.

I'm Louis Riel.

 

I've been incarcerated once for stealing cars.

Once  for unarmed robbery,

twice for leaving iron bars

with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a keg

of unimported swill. They caught me

'cuz I fell and broke my skinny leg

it out until the day I die.

I cross my heart. I hope to live .

And I'll stick a needle in my eye.

 

I've got a baby daughter I can't see.

The child welfare people like to

keep my flesh and blood from me.

But I'd steal her from her mother's arms and run

past the long arm of the law,

straight into the setting son

of mine I never had you. Hear my plea.

Be proud of who your father was;

the man you'll never; ever, ever be.

 

No one ever looks me in the heart

when they pay a dollar

for a piece of thousand year old art

ful dodgers walk around me like I'm mad.

But insanity's the only real thing

that I'll ever always had

a problem with the drugs and rehab.

But one night in the common room

I saw the Maple Leafs stick it to the Habs.

 

And when it just all gets too much for me

I wander through your markets

looking for a cup of tea,

a drink with jam and bread but they move me along.

So I find a stream of piss and tears;

a river called Saskatchewan

Fifteen and last calls coming like a train.

But I'm Louis 'til those morning bells

try bleeding him from my veins.

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© Audsongs 2001

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