THE LAST BEST PLACE
©1990 by Jack W. Gladstone and Rob Quist
Just as the orange sun breaks the plane between the dawn and day
On the Great Plains in The Last Best Place grow tender shoots of grain.
The children of a thousand years are rising once again
To hunt and fish and harvest what the Sun on Earth will send.
Up from the Ice Age to the New Age we’re somewhere in between.
We were skin-clad silent hunters but now we’re living proof of dreams
The only separation is time, the future ours to find
In The Last Best Place in the Universe,
The Last Best Place on Earth.
The Sun Loom of Creation
has spun our heart a home,
Its layers intertwined with love,
the Earth cannot be owned.
From the basins of the Big Sky through her womb her rivers run
We’re entrusted with a legacy passed Mother Earth to Sun.
Oh the mountain mists and the waterfalls in pools forever swirl.
In The Last Best Place in the Universe.
The Last Best Place in the world.
The Last Best Place on earth,
where the Flag of freedom shines.
The Last Best Place on earth,
forever will be mine.
The Last Best Place on earth.
The Last Best Place on earth.
BARN DANCE
©1987 Jack W. Gladstone (Re-recorded 1998 for Legacy)
Inspired by stories about the grand barn and house dances held in southern Alberta and northern Montana – a community tradition.
In the shadow of the Rockies down below the Canadian line,
There are tales told to us from old of the way they lived their lives.
In the great depression thirties when the dollar bills were slow,
All the foothill folk would pack up kids and Friday they did go…
To where Joe had brought his banjo and Clarence his guitar,
To where Monte played his mandolin as the heavens turned to stars.
Old May would bend her fiddle bow as fine as a gal could,
Their orchestra would lift our hearts and echo through the wood…
Down at the Barn Dance,
there were happy feet in sawdust on the floor
Down at the Barn Dance,
there were gals to meet ‘n keep forever more.
And it mattered not how dark outside the world seemed to be.
There was laughter as we do-si-doed in foothill harmony…
Down at the Barn Dance.
Where Gramma sold her moonshine, where Grampa danced till dawn.
Where the foothill band would stay and play until the last were gone.
Days would come, the pay would go, there never seemed enough
But we pulled each other through the gloom with clothes ‘n food ‘n such.
Down at the Barn Dance...
Well the Big World War arrived and swept those good ol’ days away
The old barn roof is a-saggin’ down, her logs into decay.
To my surprise, I hear a ghost say, “Swing yer gal around”
And in faint I hear the foothill band, a distant day and sound…
Down at the Barn Dance,
there were happy feet in sawdust on the floor
Down at the Barn Dance,
there were gals to meet ‘n keep forever more.
And it mattered not how dark outside the world seemed to be.
There was laughter as we do-si-doed in foothill harmony…
Down at the Barn Dance,
there were happy feet in sawdust on the floor
Down at the Barn Dance,
there were gals to meet ‘n keep forever more.
And it mattered not how dark outside the world seemed to be.
There was laughter as we do-si-doed in foothill harmony…
Down at the Barn Dance.
At the Barn Dance
Down at the Barn Dance
At the Barn Dance
CHILDREN OF THE BLACKFEET
©1987 Jack W. Gladstone
The Blackfeet were the strongest tribe out on the western plains
They stopped the White Man’s coming into their sacred range
The big white chief acknowledged this and promised them a deal
In trust they laid their guns down for that’s what peace entails
The chiefs agreed on treaty terms in 1855
That promised them a homeland forever to survive
The markets took the buffalo and gave the deed to sell
Their homeland and their promises, they wished the Blackfeet well.
But my, oh my how the times changed
You say this was a hundred years ago
My people’s word in honor shall stand for all time
Now, where did that U.S. honor go?
The proud but weakened Blackfeet stayed on the western plains
Disease and whiskey killed them throughout their sacred range
We lost our chiefs in numbers our land was auctioned off
Both BIA and CIA grew rich from Blackfeet cough.
We Children of the Blackfeet, born poor but grew up proud
We saw the U.S. promises shatter in the clouds.
With wisdom from our mothers, our pride did strive to keep
Some promises were made by men much wiser than we think.
And my, oh my how the times changed
The two world wars brought hardships to us all
And the Blackfeet fought to save this country’s destiny
Then returned home to our land which was lost to Uncle Sam.
We Blackfeet were the strongest tribe out on the western plains
We stopped the White Man’s coming into our sacred range
The big white chief acknowledged this and promised us a deal
In trust we laid our guns down for that’s what peace entails.
We chose to lay our guns down
For that’s what peace entails.
FARMER OF THE WATERS
©1991 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing (BMI)
Dedicated to Jack and Betty Loring, who for 25 years made their living fishing from lower St. Mary’s Lake in Montana. Up at 4 AM, summer mornings would find Jack out on the lake tending the night’s catch. The last five winters, his body was ravaged by cancer and found him hospitalized numerous times. But when the ice broke and spring bloomed, miraculously he was back on the lake assuming his duties. In the summer of 1985, Jack was hospitalized for the last time. I visited him and was the last person to leave his room about midnight. The next morning the “Farmer of the Waters” arose and departed from his body at about 4 AM.
The fisherman wakes at 4:00 a.m. without a clock alarm
He knows not to let the nets he set fall victim to day’s harm
The dawning air is chilly when the sun's below the rise
His yawning walk delivers him directly to lakeside.
And he crosses depths where his nets set up pulls them to his grasp.
He removes the aqua harvest. The lake is rippled glass...
With slow but timeless certainty the sun burst o’er Divide
Granting strength and vision to the caps now dancing at his side.
They sparkle bright like diamond gold on aqua blue terrain.
He’s a Farmer of the Waters, his boat, a plow on plain.
And he rows in right on heavy with a harvest from the blue.
His tubs are full and flopping with a food that’s native true.
I am proud to hold in memory a man as fine as you.
You’re a Farmer of the Waters, true and true.
The morning’s done soon as the sun is overhead and high.
The fish are in, all orders been now filled by you and wife.
With sharp and swift precision, blades are used and filets made.
How often did I think that not for any life you’d trade?
For as winter pulled your body down the spring brought life anew.
And time and time again you rose to cast your nets on blue
We are proud to hold in memory a man as fine as you.
You’re a Farmer of the Waters, true and true.
There are Farmers of the Waters plowing ‘cross the ocean plains
Whose fields will flood with topsoil with the rolling of the rains.
From the sandy beach at Waikiki to the lakes of Tennessee,
From the future to the past we know, the man from Galilee.
And they row in right on heavy with a harvest from the blue.
Their baskets full and flopping with a food that’s native true.
We are proud to hold in memory men as fine as you.
Farmers of the Waters, true and true.
Yes I am proud to hold in memory a man as fine as you.
You're a Farmer of the Waters true and true.
The fisherman woke at 4:00 a.m.
The sun was on the rise...
SPIRITUAL BROTHERS
©1990 Rob Quist, Jack W. Gladstone, Rich Fagan
This song recognized the need for one time adversaries to come together to identify and work for common interests and goals. Today’s seeds of peace bear fruit for tomorrow’s children.
Many years, we have lived
Across the river of fears.
My father rode a brand new country
Your father rode a trail of tears.
I once believed all the rumors
That separate Red from White.
Well, I began to question all of the stories
In my search for wrong and right.
For a Spiritual Brother of a different color
Isn’t always easy to find.
And the time has come
For the children of the ones who survived
To leave that river behind.
I recall the virgin prairies
Where bison flowed o’er the plains
That horizon is colder and empty now.
We both lost. We both have changed.
For a Spiritual Brother of a different color
Isn’t always easy to find.
And the time has come
For the children of the ones who survived
To leave that river behind.
And now we face the dawn together
From where the sun now stands
"I will fight no more forever"
And pass this torch into my children’s hands.
For a Spiritual Brother of a different color
Isn’t always easy to find.
And the time has come
For the children of the ones who survived
To leave that river behind.
Behind...
TO MARRY THE SUN
©1987 Jack W. Gladstone
Based on a Blackfeet myth of a girl who was taken by the Sun to be his bride. I assume the position, in this song, to be the unlucky chap who falls in love first with the girl.
The sun had shown on the prairie since time had begun
And gave her mother the earth, for the rivers to run.
And he wanted the girl, for his bride to be,
And a halo descended and rested on thee,
Reserved by the Sun.
She came upon me when I was a young twenty-one
A fresh and beautiful clear blue sky maiden she was
And we wove through the stars, and the braids became ours,
And the strands of our weaving almost were one,
If not for the Sun.
The time we glided as lovers our souls couldn’t feel,
Our revival was purely the whim of appeal.
But the earth called to me and the Sun called to thee
And the braids that we wove soon tore undone,
She Married the Sun.
Now I’m alone on the prairie glaring above,
For if an eagle, I’d battle the Sun for her love.
But mortal I am, and she is with him
Will I ever forget my lost beautiful one?
She Married the Sun.
She Married the Sun.
She Married the Sun.
WOLF (V2)
©1987 Jack W. Gladstone
I wrote this song to juxtapose the traditional Blackfeet Indian relationship with the wolf, to the recent hostility toward the wolf. The modern West today is shaped most heavily by the latter, while it is my role to remind us of the former.
Wolf, you were free, you were hunting in the sun.
Long before man arrived, you were nature, you were young.
Then we came and survived, we were brothers side by side
In the days of the arrow, in the days of the bow.
In the days of the spirit, not too long a time ago...
Wolf, you were seen by the fathers of our dream
And the hunt you engaged was the blueprint for our age.
Then we learned and we burned with desire to know more
In the dawn that was man’s they hunted o’er the plains
Still the wolf pack set the pace, when the fire was just a flame...
As plows turn the plains, we ranch on the range.
The bison are gone now, the wolf packs remain
In search of the killers of our sheep and our cattle herds.
The stockmen are helpless, they request our aid.
Protecting the rangelands, are we in our roles,
To kill thousands of bountiful wolves is our goal.
Wolf, where are you in the lower forty eight?
Once you ran through the woods of the eastern seaboard states!
Now you’re gone from the woods, from the mountains, from the plains;
They are filled with the still of a vanishing frontier
They are broken by the blade, killing all we once held dear...
Wolf, you were free, you were hunting in the sun.
Long before man arrived, you were nature, you were young.
Then we came and survived, we were brothers side by side
In the days of the arrow, in the days of the bow.
In the days of the spirit, not too long a time ago
In the days of the arrow, in the days of the bow.
In the days of the spirit, not too long a time ago...
WHEN COPPER WAS KING
©1991 Jack W. Gladstone, Glacier Pacific Publishing/BMI
This state in ’84 was yet to be born,
But her womb-held treasures drew in the swarms.
There were Irish immigrants, Germans, and Finns.
In the mines they worked and struggled within.
With a nose for profit and treasure-filled veins,
William Andrews Clark was as sharp as they came.
But not to be outdone by Butte’s favorite son,
Marcus Daly founded Anaconda.
Those were the days, smelters ablaze
Those were the days of our state’s first spring.
Those were the days. These are the ways
Of the men who ruled When Copper was King.
From the earth poured ore and treasures rose high
As the green-backed copper kings fought for the rights.
Who would rise to dominate? Who would emerge?
The richest power fist on mountain earth.
Those were the days, smelters ablaze
Those were the days of our state’s first spring.
Those were the days. These are the ways
Of the men who ruled When Copper was King.
From the loom of millionaires statehood was spun.
Within her shadow a capital won.
And when the booze stopped flowing and votes were all bought...
Anaconda’s dream fell to Helena.
Those were the days, smelters ablaze
Those were the days of our state’s first spring.
Those were the days. These are the ways
Of the men who ruled When Copper was King.
The men who ruled When Copper was King.
The men who ruled When Copper was King.
