Eric Taylor

Here is a true writer, unlike anyone else. Eric Taylor

Could not locate the lyrics for "Peppercorn Tree"

 Word's come to the mission that the the old man's ailing.
 His eyes they are failing and the weather took his hands.
And there's a ring on his finger that's shaped from a bone
 From some white man in Missouri, spilled whisky on his wife.

 CH: He has travelled the sacred circle
He has travelled the white man's train.
He's killed for hunger his buffalo brother,
He's killed for anger and the white man's name.

 His name was Joseph Cross and he was raised by the mission
Just one of a hundred Indian boys who wouldn't tie his shoes.
And he cried the night his grandpa died, he told him in a vision
'Stay close to the ways of the rattlesnake, stay close to the ways of the grizzly'

 In the 1919 chill of December
When the bear and the rattler lay sleeping, hardly breathing,
It's a penny to the kitchen boy to run fetch Sister Lydia,
Go tell her that old Indian lies sleeping, hardly breathing

 Now someone said 'It don't seem right to give him a white man's funeral'
And someone said they'd soon as not float him down the river.
But no-one touched the ring or said a word about his chest,
 where it looked like a bear had ripped him and a rattler kissed his cheek
 

 The good times scratched a laugh from the lungs of a young man
 In a Deadwood saloon South Dakota afternoon
 And the old ones by the door with their heads to their chests
 They told lies about whiskey on a woman's breast

 Some tell the story of young Mickey Free
 Lost an eye to a buck deer in the Tongue river valley
 Some tell the story of California Joe
 He sent word that the Black Hills they was a mountain of gold

 And the gold she lay cold in their pockets
 And the sun she sets down on the trees
 And they'll thank the Lord for this land that they live in
 Where a white man well he does as he pleases

 Some flat shoed fool from the east come a running
 With some news that he read in some St Joseph paper
 And its drinks all around cause the news he's a telling
 Is the one they call crazy has been caught and been dealt with

 And the Easterner he reads the news from the paper
 And the old ones draw nearer so that they can hear better
 Well it says here that Crazy Horse was killed while he was trying to escape
 Says is was sometime last September and don't give the exact date

 And the gold she lay cold in their pockets
 And the sun she sets down on the trees
 And they'll thank the Lord for this land that they live in
 Where a white man well he does as he pleases

 Then the talk turned back to whisky and women
 Cold nights on the plains lord fighting the Indians
 The Easterner says he'll have one more before he goes
 He gives up the paper to the Crow boy sweeps up the floor

 And the gold she lay cold in their pockets
 And the sun she sets down on the trees
 And they'll thank the Lord for this land that they live in
 Where a white man well he does as he pleases
 

When the boatmen stole the Africans Did your God ride or row?
When they roped them and they shackled them
Was he with them in the hold?
Was the ocean moon so beautiful
That it brought him to his knees?
What did your God see?

 When she prayed out loud in Cherokee
Was that your God by the fire?
When she swayed up there in the sweet gum tree
Was he hangin' up there beside her?
Did he bless the silver rivers?
Did he fix himself a drink?
What did your God see?

 If I sing hallelujah, will he hold my hand?
Can we dance among the blessed and the damned?
When the glory train is movin' on to Beulah Land
Can I ride as far as Andilar and come on back to town?

 Did your God ride the bullet To the old Lorraine Motel?
Is it the blood of the lamb, is it another man down,
Did he catch him as he fell?
Did he calm the waters?
Did his heart just freeze?
What did your God see?

 Did your God ride the backroads
On a Texas summer night?
Did he stand there in the pine grove
As they drug him out of sight? Did he stand for the last communion?
Did he kneel to wash his feet?
What did your God see?

 If I sing hallelujah, will he hold my hand?
Can we dance among the blessed and the damned?
When the glory train is movin' on to Beulah Land
Can I ride as far as Andilar and come on back to town?