Badlands Archives - chimesfreedom

Crazy Horse: The Last Warrior Standing, Defending the Old Way of Life

On September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco) was killed while resisting his captivity in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. During a struggle, a U.S. soldier stabbed Crazy Horse with a bayonet. Many things are still debated about that day, including the name of the soldier and how Crazy Horse resisted. But it was the end of the great military leader of the Oglala Lakota.

Crazy Horse was one of the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in 1876. After the infamous battle, U.S. soldiers had pursued Crazy Horse and his followers until the Native Americans, suffering cold and starvation, surrendered in May 1877.

Crazy Horse Photo — Disputed photo that some claim is of Crazy Horse.

In 2005, singer-songwriter Marty Stuart released Badlands: Ballads Of The Lakota. The concept album recounts Native American history and struggle. Stuart brought his outstanding musical and storytelling skills to the music. He has created other wonderful concept albums too, including his excellent The Pilgrim (1999).

On the epic song “Three Chiefs” on Badlands, Stuart sings from the point of view of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. He recounts what they might have said after their deaths when they went to another world.

In the segment in the song about Crazy Horse, the song recounts his death: “In a jailhouse in Nebraska, it was on September 5,/ Crazy Horse was fighting hard to keep himself alive.” After his death, he meets God, who asks what Crazy Horse has to say. Crazy Horse responds:

“Upon suffering. Beyond suffering. The Red Nation shall rise again.
And it shall be a blessing for a sick world.
A world filled with broken promises. Selfishness and separations.
A world longing for light again.”

Crazy Horse foretells that the Native Americans will bring healing to the land of suffering.

“I see a time of seven generations when all of the colors of mankind
Will gather under the sacred tree of life.
And the whole earth will become one circle again.
And that day, there will be those among The Lakota,
Who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things.
And the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom.”

After Crazy Horse’s death, his body was placed on a burial scaffold, and later his parents took his remains to an undisclosed location. Experts suspect the remains are in an area around Wounded Knee, South Dakota, but no one is sure of the exact location.

As Stuart sings, “Touch the Clouds took his body, back home to his family,/ Nobody knows where they laid him down, to set his spirit free.” In the video below, two of Crazy Horse’s great grandsons talk about Crazy horse’s death and burial.

Photo via public domain. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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Marty Stuart’s Celebration of “The Pilgrim” Through A Wall-to-Wall Odyssey

Little Big Horn and “Little Big Man”

Thanksgiving with Marty Stuart: Badlands

Thanksgiving with Marty Stuart: The Pilgrim

Connie Smith: “Once a Day” (Song of the Day)

Emmylou Harris Covers Steve Earle’s “The Pilgrim”

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Don’t Let (Badlands) Be Misunderstood

Bruce Springsteen explained that the lick for “Badlands” was taken from “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by the Animals.

During a 2012 talk at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference, Bruce Springsteen explained that he found the lick for “Badlands,” which appeared on Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), in “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by the Animals. Then he exclaimed, “Listen up youngsters, this is how successful theft is accomplished!”

The video of the entire speech is no longer on YouTube, but there are segments available, including the video below, which is set to start where he begins talking about the Animals.

In the rest of the speech, Springsteen explained the role that music has played in his life, including Elvis, Roy Orbison, and the Beatles. He discussed The Animals, complete with an acoustic rendition of “We Got to Get Out of This Place,” concluding, “that’s every song I’ve every written.”

I found the story about the “Badlands” riff interesting because I had not made the connection. But one may hear it now that he pointed it out. Here are the Animals performing “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” on The Ed Sullivan Show. The lick appears at several points, including the beginning and the end of the song.

Here is Springsteen performing “Badlands” at the Pinkpop festival in 2009.

Can you hear it? He did not mention the lyrics, but one might wonder whether “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” also inspired the “understood” line in the “Badlands” chorus:
“We’ll keep pushing ’til it’s understood / And these Badlands start treating us good.”

After the speech, Springsteen performed at SXSW and was joined onstage by Eric Burdon, the lead singer of the Animals (Chicago Tribune review here). So apparently there are no hard feelings about the larceny — or Springsteen’s comments earlier in the speech about how Burdon’s ugliness made him realize he could be a rock star too.

What do you think? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Local News Coverage of Bruce Springsteen in 1978

The 1966 Otis Redding TV Special

Springsteen and Bono Sing “Because the Night” in Dublin

“New” Springsteen Track: “Meet Me In the City”

Springsteen’s “Spill the Wine”: Is This Just a Dream?

What Song Would Springsteen Want His Children to Know?

(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)

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Thanksgiving with Marty Stuart: Badlands

In a previous Thanksgiving post, we examined one of my favorite albums, Marty Stuart’s The Pilgrim (1999). But in celebrating Thanksgiving, we cannot forget that sitting across from the Pilgrims at that first Thanksgiving, were Native Americans. And, fortunately for us, Marty Stuart recorded Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota (2005). Yes, I realize that the Lakota Sioux were not the Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, but neither was the Pilgrim from The Pilgrim. But we are using the holiday as an excuse to discuss these two excellent CDs.

On Badlands, Stuart interweaves country music with Native American themes and music to tell about the the Lakota culture and the betrayal by white men. AllMusic describes Badlands as “an album that is unsettling, provocative, morally instructive, and deeply satisfying musically as a country record that sets the bar higher than it has been set in a long, long time.”

Stuart clearly intended the album as a tribute to the spirit of the Lakota, who adopted him into their tribe. In “Trip to Little Big Horn,” he tells the story of Custer’s Last Stand as a dialogue with a ghost. “I saw 100 years of Indians, dancing in the sun / I felt the Indian power. The battle is still won / The battle is still won.”

The title song of the album is excellent, as Stuart predicts, “Well it’s a church without a steeple / But in the heart of its people / Good will come again, to the Badlands.” The three men referenced by the song “Three Chiefs” are Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse. Stuart uses the song to find a connection between Native American spirituality and his own beliefs. After recounting the suffering of the “prophets to their people,” he recounts, “The truth is hard to find./ No cross, no crown.”

Another song, “Casino,” addresses a more recent Native American issue: “Card sharks take my money, whiskey puts me in jail/ An oasis of misery, I know it so well.”

The CD covers a broad span of history, including Little Big Horn, Wounded Knee, casinos, and even a visit to the reservation by President Clinton in “Broken Promise Land.” But Stuart also remembers that it is an album, not a book, and the story and the music augment each other, never interfering with the other. While the album has not captured me the way that The Pilgrim has, Badlands shows that Marty Stuart is one of the best writers and performers in country music today. He continues the legacy of artists like his friend Johnny Cash, who recorded his own concept album about Native Americans in Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian (1964).

Badlands received overwhelmingly positive reviews. It is a very good album that also tells an important story. While it really has nothing directly to do with Thanksgiving, the holiday is a good time to also remember the Sioux and the other Native Americans across the continent on that first Thanksgiving day, waiting for the force that would sweep across the land.