SHE USED TO WANNA BE A BALLERINA

Soldier Blue
© Words & Music by Buffy Sainte-Marie

I wrote this song as the title theme for the movie Soldier Blue and it became a hit in Europe, Japan and Canada during the summer of 1971. But the movie disappeared from U.S. theatres real fast, so few Americans are familiar with it. As there’s a difference between love and rape, the same differences exist in how one views their country. “Soldier Blue” is not about loving one’s “nation state”; it’s about loving the natural environment in which all nations are related as children of the Sacred. Chris Birkett plays guitar.

I look out and I see a land
Young and lovely hard and strong
For 50,000 years we’ve danced her praises
Prayed our thanks and we’ve just begun
Yes, yes

This this is my country
Young and growing
free and flowing sea to sea
Yes this is my country
Ripe and bearing miracles
in every pond and tree

Her spirit walks the high country
giving free wild samples
and setting an example how to give
Yes this is my countrry
Retching and turning
She’s like a baby learning how to live.

I can stand upon a hill at dawn
look all around me
Feel her surround me
Soldier Blue
Can’t you see her life has just begun
It’s beating inside us
Telling us she’s here to guide us.

Ooo
Soldier Blue, Soldier Blue
Can’t you see that there’s another way to love her

Yes this is my country
I sprang from her and I’m
learning how to count upon her
Tall trees and the corn is high country
Yes I love her and I’m
learning how to take care of her

When the news stories get me down
I take a drink of freedom to think of
North America from toe to crown
It’s never long before
I know just why I belong here

Soldier Blue, Soldier Blue
Can’t you see that there’s another way to love her.