Sand Creek River -- Fabrizio de André, 1981

This ballad is inspired by the massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people (mostly women and children) at the Sand Creek River in Colorado in 1864. De André tells the story through the eyes and words of a child victim.


They took our hearts under a dark blanket

We slept with no fear under the little dead moon

It was a twenty year old general

Blue eyes and uniform

It was a twenty year old general

The son of a thunderstorm.

There’s a silver dollar at the bottom of Sand Creek

Our warriors too far away tracking buffaloes

And that far away music grew louder and louder

I shut my eyes three times

Yet I found I was still there

I asked granpa if it was only a dream

Granpa said yes

Sometimes the fish sing at the bottom of Sand Creek.

I dreamed so hard, blood came out of my nose

Thunder in one ear, paradise in the other

The smallest tears

The biggest tears

When the tree in the snow

Bloomed with red stars

Now the children sleep in a Sand Creek bed.

When the sun rose its head between the night’s shoulders

There were dogs and smoke and overturned tipis.

I shot an arrow to the sky

To make it breathe

I shot an arrow to the wind.

To make it bleed.

Look for the third arrow at the bottom of Sand Creek.

Titus’s Last Will -- Fabrizio de André, in “La buona novella”, 1970

Titus is the penitent thief crucified beside Jesus. De André imagines him turning the ten commandments into his will, while he waits to die.

“Thou shalt have no Gods before me”. That often made me think of other people from the East, who said their God was about the same. They believed in someone different from you, yet they did not hurt me.

“Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name, thou shalt not take it in vain”. Yet, with a knife piercing my side, I screamed my pain and His name. But perhaps he was tired, perhaps too busy, and didn’t hear my pain. Perhaps he was too far removed to feel my suffering, yet I named him in vain.

“Honor thy father, honor thy mother”, honor their belt too, kiss the hand that broke my nose when I asked for a morsel. When my father’s heart stopped I felt no pain.

“Remember the sabbath to keep it holy”. Easy for us thieves, to enter the temples that regurgitate psalms, about slaves and their masters, and then end up tied to the altars, throats slit like animals.

“Thou shalt not steal”, and perhaps I honored that one, by silently emptying the swollen pockets of bigger thieves. Yet, without the law on my side, I stole in my own name, and those others in the name of God.

“Thou shalt not commit impure acts”, that is, do not waste your semen. Impregnate a woman every time you make love to her, thus you’ll prove your faith. Then the lust goes away and the children remain, and many the hunger will kill. Perhaps I confused pleasure and love, yet I created no suffering.

The seventh says “Thou shalt not kill”, if you want to be worthy of heaven. Yet look at this law of God today, thrice nailed onto wood: look at the end of that Nazarene, and this thief doesn’t die any less.

“Thou shalt not bear false witness”, and help them kill a man. They have memorized divine law, yet always forget forgiving: I perjured myself unto God and honor, yet I don’t feel the pain: I hurt no one.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors things nor wife”. Tell that to the few who have a woman and some things: in their warm beds, already warmed by love, I did not feel any pain. The envy of yesterday is gone already: tonight I envy your life.

Yet the night now comes, the dark takes the pain off my eyes, and the sun slips down from the dunes, gone to rape another night. And I, looking at this man die, I do feel the pain. Mother, as rage surrenders to pity, I do find love, yes, I have learned to love.