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--I'd been thinking about all the nativism, anti-immigration rhetoric, and Trump-enabling racism in the news recently, and that led to me thinking a little bit more about what it means to be a "native" of a place. Human history is rife with movements of peoples, usually in the form of conquests, blessed by some religious notion and full of rape, pillage, looting, enslavement, etc. I'm not sure you can name a people who don't have this in their history of getting to wherever they live now (it's certainly how the US was "settled"....). In writing this song, it occurred to me that maybe being a "native" of a place should be less about whether you were born there and more about how you treat that little section of Earth. This is the only planet we've got and, after all, we are all natives of this Final Blue.

Watch the video here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8mFDSoiRjs

lyrics

Native
(© 2016 Walter Ehresman)

Poison flows, with signs held high;
Say “Go Home!” (just guessing where you came from);
You cry “why won’t you talk to me?”
Can’t abide the differences they see.

Won’t recall the family tree—
one and all took chance upon the waters;
Now free to kill all those they find;
Destiny won’t allow a guilty mind.

[chorus #1]
Do you love the land—the place your feet have come to?
Do you treat it as your sacred ground, and rally ‘round it?
Circling past a finite star—
we’re all natives of the Final Blue.

Name the ones who never invade;
Name the ones whose people were all born here
and they stayed, and never conquered anyone;
No slaves; not some god’s chosen ones.

Forces try to stoke our fears;
Rich men buy endless campaigns grinding you
to tears, rotting out your better side;
So sincere—behind the flag and cross they hide.

People move from place to place,
then we choose how to treat our newest neighbor—
lock our space, or open up our hearts?
A birthplace is just part of who we are.

[chorus #2]
Do you love the land—the place your feet have come to?
Will you treat it as your sacred ground, and rally ‘round it?
Circling past a finite star—
we’re all natives of the Final Blue.

credits

from Pinches Topes, released December 16, 2016
Walter Ehresman: vocals, keyboards, 5-string electric bass, keyboard percussion, sequencing.

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Walter Ehresman San Miguel De Allende, Mexico

Called "the quintessential Austin DIY artist" by famed local disc jockey Charlie Martin , Walter Ehresman was an eccentric presence in the Austin music scene from the '80s until his 2015 move to Mexico. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist...and a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, expressed with fearlessly honest, socially-conscious lyrics. ... more

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