DRUMS
Writer: Peter LaFarge
Recorded by: Johnny Cash
Album: Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian

Key of G

G
From the Indian reservation 
G      C            G
To the governmental school
G            C           G      
Well they're goin' to educate me 
G      D         
To the white men's Golden Rule
D       G
And I'm learning very quickly 
G        C              G    
For I've learned to be ashamed
G     C                   G
And I come when they call Billy 
G           D             G
Though I've got an Indian name

CHORUS: 
G
And there are drums beyond the mountain 
G      C                    G
Indian drums that you can't hear
G         C                G
There are drums beyond the mountain 
G           D              G
And they're getting mighty near

And when they think that they'd changed me 
Cut my hair to meet their needs
Will they think I'm white or Indian 
Quarter blood or just half breed
Let me tell you Mister Teacher 
When you say you'll make me right
In five hundred years of fighting 
Not one Indian turned white

CHORUS

Well you thought that I knew nothing 
When you brought me here to school
Just another empty Indian 
Just America's first fool
But now I can tell you stories 
That are burnt and dried and old
But in the shadow of their telling 
Walks the thunder proud and bold

CHORUS

Long Pine and Sequoia 
Handsome Lake and Sitting Bull
There's Magnus Colorado 
With his sleeves so red and full
Crazy Horse the legend 
Those who bit off Custer's soul
They are dead yet they are living 
With the great Geronimo

CHORUS

Well you may teach me this land's history 
But we taught it to you first
We broke your hearts and bent your journeys 
Broken treaties left us cursed
Even now you have to cheat us 
Even though you this us tame
In our losing we found proudness 
In your winning you found shame

CHORUS