I’m gonna go down to the river

Draw me some water

Dip into that river

Carry it back to my home

I’m gonna take into my body

Give it to my wife and children

Quench the thirst of my family

Bring life to this land

 

And the crops will spring

And children will grow

Life will flow on this land that we love

The river will run and I’ll go down

To the rushing sound every day of my life

Flowers will bloom on the resting grounds

Of my ancestors who showed me the way

The river will run and I’ll go down

To the rushing sound…

It’s the rushing sound that brings us life

But the rushing sound ain’t there anymore

 

Now there’s a man telling me

I have to move out of the valley

Now there’s a man telling me

This land ain’t my home

When I go to get my shotgun

There’s an army behind him

When I go to get my shotgun

He says we have no choice

 

And now I work for a man,

Who built the dam

Stopped the rushing downstream

He makes me live in the city

And he calls it “opportunity”

We’re living in a shack

With the people stacked up on every one of our sides

But when I die you’d better carry me

Back to the valley

To the place where the river has run dry

(C) Justin Isaac, 2009