0:15

Pushkin. This

0:33

is talk easy. I'm sanforgo, so

0:36

welcome to the show today.

0:51

I am joined by the legendary Buffy

0:53

Saint Marie. For more than half

0:55

a century, Buffy has been telling her

0:58

story through songs, although

1:00

not just her story, but the

1:03

story of her people. Born

1:05

on a cree reserve in Saskatchewan,

1:07

Canada, she was removed from her family

1:09

at a young age. She doesn't know

1:11

when exactly. She grew up with

1:13

her adoptive family in Massachusetts.

1:17

She managed as well as anyone could given

1:20

the conditions. We get into all of

1:22

that early in this talk. Come

1:24

time for college. She attends the

1:26

University of Massachusetts, where

1:28

she earned double degrees in teaching

1:30

and Oriental philosophy. As

1:33

she left school for New York City, she

1:35

would inject those two majors

1:37

into her songwriting. Part

1:39

educational, part philosophical. Buffy

1:42

began playing music that no one

1:44

had ever quite heard before. By the early

1:47

sixties, she was traveling the world,

1:49

singing folk songs in concert halls

1:51

and coffee houses like the Gas

1:53

Like Cafe, alongside Bob

1:56

Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and

1:58

Joni Mitchell. She did all this by

2:00

the age of twenty five. From

2:02

there, Her career has taken many

2:04

shapes, with music always

2:06

at the center. She wrote love song,

2:09

protest songs, spiritual songs,

2:12

a combination of which got her blacklisted

2:14

by Presidents Nixon and Johnson. She

2:17

won an Academy Award in nineteen eighty

2:19

two for co writing the song up

2:21

Where We Belong from the film An

2:23

Officer and a Gentleman, making her

2:25

the first Indigenous person to win

2:27

an OSCAR. She had a five year

2:30

run as a cast member on Sesame Street,

2:32

where she was the first person to breastfeed a child

2:34

on national television. Her music

2:37

has been covered by Elvis Presley, ROBERTA.

2:39

Flack, Johnny Mathis

2:41

Share, and Barbara Streisan.

2:44

In fact, it's next to a photo of

2:46

Streisann that a photo of Buffy

2:49

sits at the top floor of the new Academy

2:51

Museum Here in Los Angeles. The

2:53

Wall of Women is dedicated to trailblazing

2:56

talents that broke barriers and

2:58

records, like Hattie McDaniel,

3:01

Rita Moreno, and Sophia Lorene.

3:04

There, Buffy seems to be receiving

3:06

the kind of recognition that is long overdue

3:09

from this country. So in

3:11

celebrating national American Indian

3:13

Heritage Month, and of course the

3:15

legacy of Buffy's work. I

3:17

wanted to have her on the show. She's

3:20

now eighty years old and more

3:22

vibrant than I am after two cups

3:24

of coffee just sitting across

3:26

from her in person. There's something

3:29

infectious about Buffy's optimism.

3:31

It's not blind optimism either. It

3:34

seems hard fought, a woman

3:36

who's seen it all and has had

3:38

the courage and the talent to

3:40

put her life into music for

3:43

over fifty years. Today

3:45

she shares the songs and the

3:48

sometimes difficult, sometimes

3:50

beautiful experiences that made them

3:52

possible with us. I hope

3:54

you enjoy,

4:08

Buffy, say Murray, nice to meet you, Thank

4:10

you, nice to meet to do. How are you feeling

4:12

good now? Your music

4:14

has taken you all over the world, a

4:17

few places I haven't been, but

4:19

I want to go back to you. At the

4:21

age of three, it's my understanding that it's

4:23

around that time that you discover

4:26

a piano. It's my first memory

4:29

I remember on finding

4:31

the piano, and it wasn't just the most incredible

4:34

toy ever, and

4:37

it kind of still is. You know, I discovered

4:39

music through play

4:41

and I think it's made a tremendous difference

4:43

in the kind of music that I write,

4:45

in the longevity in my career and

4:47

staying into it and motivated.

4:50

And it was very,

4:52

very weird for me as a child because

4:54

I was told that I couldn't be a musician by

4:56

whom well, when I went to school. I

4:58

mean, they never heard me play, but you know

5:01

they were trying to teach us and don't ramiba

5:03

so and you know that middle

5:05

C is where it's at on the

5:07

staff and I couldn't re European

5:10

notation. It was weird to be

5:12

told that you can't be a musician when that's

5:14

all that you think you are. I mean, you know, my

5:17

identity. The one thing that I knew for

5:19

sure was when I went home, I was going to sit

5:21

down and play anything I want. At

5:23

the age of three, you knew I'm a musician.

5:26

No, I knew that this is the most fun I've ever

5:28

had. And it has continued

5:30

to be a lot of people who

5:32

can read music, God bless them all. I mean,

5:35

there's for me, there's three hundred and sixty degrees

5:37

of ways to be a musician. To approach

5:40

musician, and wherever you're coming from, you approach

5:42

music in that way. But there's

5:44

no money in some of the best things

5:46

in the world, like natural musician,

5:49

like being a natural artist, like like

5:52

clean water, like breastfeeding, there's

5:54

no money in it. Where does the money come out? You

5:56

know, it almost doesn't exist in

5:59

the world that we live in. It's not acknowledged.

6:02

Just the idea of being shunned and shamed

6:05

in music classes throughout my life

6:08

a musician. I mean, it should

6:10

maybe have made me mad

6:13

or mean or something, but it just kind of makes

6:15

me laugh. Because the natural things that

6:17

we have, you know, they are ours. There's nobody can take

6:19

them away. It doesn't matter if they don't see them.

6:21

So growing up between Maine and Massachusetts,

6:25

you had this daily after

6:27

school routine. You said,

6:29

I dropped my books at home, grab

6:32

my skates, go down the hill

6:34

to the lake, and skate until dark.

6:37

In your head, you'd have a

6:39

certain kind of music that I wanted to

6:42

play for you here. Oh okay,

6:45

So I'm like and

7:05

have that playing in my head and I'd be sailing around

7:07

them. It

7:10

was great. You know, it's kind of like having playlists

7:13

in your head before we had

7:15

phones that did that. You know, I've

7:17

always been able to hear music in my head, music

7:19

that you know, like what we're listening to, or

7:22

what I'd hear on the radio, or if there

7:24

wasn't anything, I'd just make it up myself. And

7:26

it was as free as when you

7:29

you know, if you take a bunch of little kids to the beach,

7:31

they all make art, and our

7:34

adults are just too lame

7:37

to recognize it as art. They

7:39

make sand castles and architecture.

7:41

They use their imaginations, they make drama, they

7:44

make up stories, they make up dialogue,

7:47

they make pictures, they dance, they

7:49

sing all naturally.

7:52

And if only we can find a way to nurture

7:54

that in every person, I just think

7:56

would have a better world. Instead of that's

7:59

what we have to get rid of. Let's

8:01

get something that people pay for to substitute

8:04

for it. That's kind of, you

8:06

know, one of the little

8:08

itches that that I would love to scratch.

8:11

It's funny because in your authorized

8:13

biography you have this whole passage

8:15

about parents encouraging their

8:18

children to create, and it made

8:20

me wonder, did your parents ever

8:22

do that for you? No, but

8:24

they didn't tell me to shut up, which is just as good.

8:28

No. I was raised as an adopted

8:30

child in a rather humble family,

8:33

and people were

8:36

not musicians. For me,

8:38

the big thing is what was left out. Nobody

8:40

made me take lessons. They

8:43

took me to a music teacher

8:45

and I was probably, I don't know, maybe maybe

8:48

in grade one, you know, just young five

8:50

or six. And the music

8:53

teacher God bless and said, don't ever make her.

8:56

Don't ever make her take lessons unless she begs

8:58

for them. And I never did. And in

9:00

a way, as an adult, you know, as a person

9:02

who's had a professional career in music,

9:06

I can see a lot of great things about reading

9:08

music, and I wish that I could. But

9:12

one time I was talking to Chet Atkins

9:15

and I told Chet that's you know, I've always had

9:17

a hard time. People give me a hard time because they can't

9:19

read music. You know. The boys in the band would

9:21

give me the business because they can read and I

9:23

can't. You know what I tell people

9:25

when they asked me if I can read music, I

9:28

said no, Chet, what And Chet said

9:30

not enough to hurt my playing. So

9:34

that's how it is for me too. I wonder how much

9:36

music served as refuge

9:39

for you in your childhood, where

9:41

you grow up with these adopted parents.

9:44

Albert and Winifred. He was a mechanic.

9:46

She was a newspaper copy editor.

9:49

It was not an easy childhood, and it

9:52

sounds to me like music was

9:54

your safe space away

9:56

from all that, well kind of, but it was a lot

9:58

more than that. And with respect

10:01

to my parents, I did have

10:03

a hard time as a child, but not because of them. You

10:05

know, they were pedophiles in the neighborhood and they were pedophiles

10:08

in the house. But my mom and dad were both

10:10

very nice and not my mom was My

10:13

dad didn't pay that much attention to me because I was

10:15

a girl, but my mom wanted me

10:17

to go to college. My mom

10:19

was part Migma. Nigma is what we

10:21

say now, But when we were growing up, she

10:23

used to say, yes that she was part micmac and

10:26

yeah, I did. I had a hard time. But music. Music

10:29

wasn't just a refuge, I can. I can see why

10:31

everybody would think so, because a kid with a

10:33

you know, with a rough childhood like that, I

10:36

did hide away. I did take

10:38

refuge. I you know when I was

10:40

when I had the blues, I sit down and I played

10:43

these tragic melodies.

10:45

But you know, music, let me say,

10:48

was Um, it wasn't just a refuge.

10:50

It was also my joy. I'm very

10:52

fortunate, you know. I've had two families

10:54

and I've loved them both, and they've loved me too.

10:56

And my second family is my Cree family,

10:59

Amo Pie Pot and Clara

11:01

Starblanket pie Pot and they

11:03

took me in. And there's a Cree tradition that

11:06

if a family has lost babies,

11:09

children, they search

11:11

for someone to replace that child, that

11:14

person in their lives, and that's what happened

11:17

to me. They adopted me, they took

11:19

me in. And in case

11:21

any of you are envisioning like a

11:23

christening, a baptism, or

11:25

a wedding, it wasn't like that at all. There's no

11:28

there was no It's not like a ceremony

11:30

that we could film. No. They just

11:32

told me we were just

11:35

in the home of my Nick

11:37

Wemiss. Nick Wemiss is a Cree

11:39

word and that's the person who names you, and

11:42

so he became my name giver. And

11:44

I was just part of the pipe Pine family ever

11:46

since. And I still see my family

11:49

who raised me, especially my sister,

11:52

but for the most part, they became my family

11:55

for the rest of my life. And my nieces and

11:57

nephews, you know, I've seen them grow

11:59

up from from babies to having

12:01

their own babies, and it's

12:03

really given. It's really really

12:05

healed something inside me. I think that

12:07

I was not even

12:10

dreaming of as a child. I didn't even know I

12:12

was missing it. But when you say home,

12:14

that's kind of what really solidified it for

12:16

me, was, you know, having a new

12:18

family who may or may

12:20

not actually be related to me. We really

12:23

don't know, but it just doesn't make make

12:25

any difference to any of us. I

12:27

also have a sister in the same

12:29

family, so they had two babies die,

12:31

two little girls, and so

12:34

Brenda, who's my sister now.

12:37

Brenda was the first and

12:40

then I was the second to

12:43

heal the hole in their families, and it certainly

12:45

healed a hole in me. I know many

12:47

people listening right now at eighteen

12:50

haven't had an experience

12:52

like you're describing at any age,

12:55

and I want to know how did

12:57

that feel to heal in that way?

12:59

In that moment, it was just something

13:02

lovely. I already felt

13:04

like I belonged with them anyway. I've

13:06

been spending lots and lots of time with them. I knew

13:08

that they want me to be a part of their family. I knew

13:10

about that tradition. It's not as though

13:12

the moment came and

13:15

we did it. It wasn't like that. No, it was just

13:17

a conversation, you know. And JB

13:20

burned some sweet grass. He

13:22

said some prayers, and Cree

13:25

prayers are long, and

13:27

my dad, Emil Pine said some prayers.

13:30

It was wonderful, but it didn't really feel

13:32

like a ceremony. I guess what I want to understand

13:34

before we move forward is this sense

13:37

of home. You know, all of us try

13:39

to find it throughout our life. For some of us

13:41

it comes easy. For some of us that comes later.

13:44

And I wondered when you began

13:46

to understand that your

13:49

home was not so easily

13:51

defined. When I'm out traveling,

13:53

you know, it occurs to me that

13:56

if I'm thinking about family and Saskatchewan,

13:58

for instance, on the reservation right, they

14:00

don't know what my life is like. I

14:03

don't have a normal life. I mean entertainer.

14:06

I travel all the time. I live in hotel

14:09

hills and airports. I don't have

14:11

some of you know, the things that I long for, like

14:14

what oh, just being around for power? I was

14:16

in birthdays and fun and you know, just

14:18

to be able to go to weddings and funerals

14:21

and special events and

14:23

family things. You know, I'm just not there. I'm

14:26

just not there. I'm always in someplace else.

14:28

So in a way, I've lived on the road for

14:30

over fifty years. I took sixteen

14:33

years off in the middle of my career to raise my son.

14:35

But still my sense of home really

14:37

is in Hawaii on my farm. I live

14:40

with a whole bunch of animals. So I have a double life.

14:42

It's it couldn't be better. It's not either

14:44

or they're both wonderful. I'm so

14:46

fortunate. But you do eventually leave

14:49

both of your families for college

14:51

in nineteen fifty eight. It's

14:53

there at the University of Massachusetts

14:55

at Amherst that you begin playing

14:58

your songs for classmates. How

15:00

did you like playing for someone else, not

15:03

just for yourself alone in a

15:05

room, but in front of other

15:07

people. I play in a funny

15:09

way that kind of takes the trependatiousness

15:12

out of it, in a way, because

15:15

it's fun, and because

15:17

it's not really for an audience. It's just

15:19

for your friends. You know. It's like

15:21

when you sit around a campfire with your buddies and

15:23

if you know, everybody's plays a song on the

15:25

guitar. It's no big deal. Can I add

15:27

one thing, I've been around a lot of campfires. Yeah,

15:30

it's not very good. If

15:32

I was around a campfire and Buffy Saint

15:34

Marie started playing, I think my jaw would

15:36

drop. Well, people did like it, but

15:38

it wasn't scary. It wasn't like stage

15:40

fright kind of thing because it was real funky. It

15:42

was just for my friends and I was around a fire

15:44

or in the dorm or something. But when I started

15:47

professionally, I wasn't trying to get

15:49

into show business, is the thing. I had

15:51

something else in mind anyway. It was going to go to India

15:53

and become a saint as one

15:55

does as one does. Yeah, And my

15:57

major had been Oriental Philosophy and religion,

16:00

so I was studying world religion. But what I was

16:02

really studying was not the fact, so who did

16:04

what? When I was just really

16:06

hungry, like I'm hungry for music, it's just delicious

16:09

to me. I have always found it delicious

16:11

to talk with anybody about how

16:13

they perceive the creator and the creation,

16:16

and when it says, even in the Bible

16:19

that we're made in the image of the Creator. To me,

16:21

that's always matter. That's our green light for creativity.

16:24

That's our green light to stop just sitting

16:26

there and doing the same old thing every day. You

16:28

can be somebody different every day. In my philosophy,

16:31

everybody is ripening at our own

16:33

pace, just like any seed or any

16:35

flower, or any tree or any animal. We're

16:38

all ripening, each one at our own pace.

16:40

And that's why we don't have to judge

16:42

each other. We can teach and share, but we

16:44

don't ever have to correct our buddies. You

16:47

know, I've known people who are really

16:49

trolly and who if somebody makes a

16:51

mistake, they just feel compelled

16:54

to correct the person. But

16:56

I feel as though if you let that go, it's like

16:58

a big burden off your shoulders. None

17:00

of us have to be correcting and trolling

17:02

on each other. We don't have to do that. You've

17:04

always had this generosity

17:06

of spirit, and I

17:09

think it applies to some

17:11

of your music, especially when

17:13

you get into protest songs, which you have

17:15

this quote. I really like that. I want to read you said, because

17:17

I never come from anger, I think my message

17:20

has been clearer. Protest songs have to

17:22

be more than emotional angry Indian songs

17:25

or angry anti war songs. It's

17:28

okay to do that, but anger itself

17:30

is not necessarily effective in making

17:33

change, which is what I

17:35

wanted to do. And that philosophy

17:37

you're talking about, I think it first

17:40

seemed evident in the song. Now

17:42

that the Buffalo is gone, why don't

17:44

we take a listen? Really forever?

17:47

George Washington sign he

17:50

didn't do lady, he didn't

17:53

you man, And it's pret

17:55

easy being broken by him,

17:58

damn, And what will you

18:00

do for these? Why I

18:04

feel about audience is the same way

18:06

as I feel about kids. As a teacher

18:08

or someone who who has some information to

18:10

deliver. I'm not there to break your heart, to

18:12

scold you, to make you feel bad,

18:15

to insult you, or any of that. No, I'm

18:17

just there to put the facts out

18:19

there. Not only the Buffalo has Gone is a pretty easy

18:21

song to write. All it is is a list of facts.

18:24

But it's facts the general public didn't know

18:26

anything about. They didn't know that the Seneca

18:28

Reservation was being flooded in order

18:31

to build a dam, for which there were three alternative

18:33

sites. But somebody was going to make a

18:35

fortune on this one, and they did. They evicted

18:38

the Senecas. What they

18:40

broke the oldest treaty and congressional

18:42

archives that had been made in the time of

18:44

George Washington. They broke

18:47

that treaty, and here I am singing

18:49

to people in New York who don't even

18:51

know anything about it. I wrote that song

18:53

because I thought if people only knew that,

18:55

they would try to help. And in many

18:57

cases they did, and I'm very proud that

19:00

they did. You know, it's not only non

19:02

Indian people who don't know what's going

19:04

on under the covers. It's also us

19:06

indigenous people. And when I say

19:08

us Indigenous people, even that is deserves

19:11

a little bit of an explanation. Since we're not

19:13

all the same. It's not as though

19:15

we were a homogeneous group. We're all over the

19:17

place. I mean, I'm not a Seneca, but I

19:20

was singing about the Senecas, and I

19:22

was not trying to scold the audience. I

19:24

was just trying to give them the facts. I

19:27

feel as though when I stepped out on a stage

19:29

as one was I guess twenty one or twenty

19:32

two. I guess in New York, and

19:34

I sang that song. The only

19:36

reason that I had the nerve to even

19:38

open my mouth and sing, because I didn't consider myself

19:40

a singer or a great guitar player. Was

19:43

because of the content of the songs.

19:46

I was hoping somebody else had sing them. Judy

19:49

Collins and Jumps weren't gonna sing

19:51

my songs obviously, you know, they

19:53

had their own, so I was stuck with me

19:55

in the singer. I didn't

19:57

think I'd ever have a career as a singer.

20:00

Along about my second or third album,

20:03

having been shocked at the

20:05

cuts and the takes that Vanguard

20:08

had chosen, where sometimes

20:10

I wouldn't sing any in tune. Oh,

20:13

I said, oh girl, you got to learn how to sing.

20:15

So I started listening while I would

20:17

sing, and I didn't used to. I would only be

20:20

telling the story. I could have my eyes shut

20:22

tight in the dark and telling

20:24

you the story. But I think it's that ability to

20:26

tell a story that caught people's

20:28

attention in the early nineteen sixties,

20:31

especially as you're performing at a place like

20:34

the Gas Like Cafe alongside

20:36

Joan Baias and Bob Dylan, and

20:38

yet you really were learning on the

20:41

job. It's around this time

20:43

that you write a song called Universal Soldier.

20:45

Now can you walk us through the

20:48

origin of this song. You're in an airport

20:50

on the way to San Francisco. What do you

20:53

see. Well, the door opens and here come

20:55

a bunch of medics in uniform. This

20:57

is Vietnam time, and they

20:59

were wheeling wounded soldiers and

21:01

gurneys and wheelchairs. And

21:04

I got to talking to one of the medics and at

21:07

the time, we were being told that there would no

21:09

war in Vietnam, and so talking

21:11

to the medics, you know, you know, they're telling here there's no war,

21:14

and he assured me yes. So

21:18

I had been coming from Mexico is in San Francisco

21:20

overnight waiting for a morning flight, and

21:23

I just started thinking about that. Who's responsible

21:25

for war? Is that these poor guys lie in there. You

21:27

know, they signed up and enlisted because of I don't

21:29

know, family tradition or to see

21:32

the world, or a sense of patriotism

21:34

or yeah, they have a certain responsibility.

21:38

Then you know, the night goes on. I I don't not think any Wait

21:40

a minute, what about career military

21:42

officers. What about guys who spend their

21:44

entire adult lives getting

21:47

advanced degrees and how to make war better?

21:49

I mean, you know, we don't talk about this very often.

21:51

And in North America we have four

21:54

very heavily funded, very serious colleges

21:56

of war does the Royal Military Academy

21:59

Annapolis at West Point, the

22:02

Army College of War, the Air Force Academies,

22:04

five of them. All these years later, we don't have

22:07

one single college with

22:09

the funding and the cloak and the seriousness.

22:12

Who are teaching alternative conflict

22:14

resolution? And alternative

22:16

conflict resolution, I think, is really

22:19

the key phrase. It's not and I'm

22:21

going to march for peace. No, of

22:24

course you are, but alternative conflict

22:26

resolution can be taught. Gandhi

22:28

changed the history of India

22:30

and the British Empire with

22:33

alternative conflict resolution, Martin

22:35

Luther King, That's what he was doing. But we're not doing

22:37

it. And look at this crazy world today where

22:40

even our brothers and sisters online

22:42

are trolling and fighting and

22:45

backbiting and bullying, and we

22:47

don't have to do it. We can let all

22:49

of that go. We don't have to tear the system

22:51

down in order to make it better. We

22:54

just need to start making sense. I think so

22:56

universal soldier, I had thought

22:58

about the poor soldiers and enlisted

23:01

men. I thought about career

23:03

military officers, And then I started

23:05

thinking, wait a minute, who is it actually makes

23:07

the decision, you know, presses the button, the

23:09

phone call that starts the war? Or horror the politicians

23:12

general, Now let's get them there. They are obviously

23:14

the ones. But you know, when it comes down

23:16

to it, in a so called democracy, who

23:19

is it who votes for the politicians? So

23:21

it comes down to us. So Universal Soldier

23:23

is a song about individual responsibility

23:25

for the world we're living in. Well, then why

23:28

don't we take a listen. This is a live performance

23:30

of Universal Soldiers,

23:33

the Universal Soldier, and

23:36

he really is to playing. They

23:43

come from him and you and

23:45

me and brothers. Can't

23:47

you see? This is not

23:49

the way we put it into

23:52

war? As

23:58

the song comes out in nineteen sixty six.

24:01

The good part is that the track is

24:03

powerful and urgent. The

24:05

bad part is that some people in the music

24:08

industry took advance edge. What

24:10

exactly happened here? When I went

24:12

to Greenwich Village, I had never met a lawyer.

24:15

I had never had a conversation with a businessman.

24:18

I didn't know any of the rules.

24:22

I didn't know you're supposed to kiss businessmen on

24:24

both cheeks I had none of that. Are you supposed

24:26

to? Apparently? Anyway,

24:28

I was really really green and

24:31

I was singing Universal Soldier at the gas like

24:33

cafe and the highwaymen came in

24:35

and they were coming off a number one worldwide

24:37

hit called Michael Roh the Boat Shore.

24:40

Yeah. They were, you know, a

24:42

men's singing group, kind of a preppy singing

24:44

group. They sang a lot of really

24:47

actual folk songs. They needed

24:49

one more song for their album. It was going

24:51

to come out right away, and they wanted to record

24:53

Universal Soldier and I said sure, yeah,

24:56

And there was a guy sitting at

24:58

the next table. The himewoman said okay,

25:00

so who's your publisher? And I said what, I

25:03

didn't know what a publisher was. You

25:05

know, I was just right out of college. And the

25:07

guy at the next table said, oh, and help with that.

25:09

And so this guy, Elmer Jared Gordon,

25:12

you know, I gave him the publishing for one dollar. That's

25:14

how green I was. Ten years later,

25:16

I bought it back, at least part

25:19

of it, for twenty five thousand

25:21

dollars. The good news is that I had the twenty five

25:23

thousand dollars to do it. The bad news is that

25:25

I had to do that at all, just by being, you

25:27

know, from being so green, and that someone would take

25:29

advantage of it like that when they knew that they

25:31

wouldn't have to do one single thing.

25:34

It was already sold to the hiringmen, you

25:36

know. It's not as though they had to go out and find

25:38

someone to sing it. That's how

25:40

some people in any business are.

25:43

It's not just show business. I'm not saying show business

25:46

is all crooked. It's not. Any business

25:48

attracts sharks

25:50

and people who are after money,

25:53

and they really get a kick out of it. They

25:55

love it as much as I love making music.

25:58

I learned from that experience never to do

26:00

that again. Never to sell your song for

26:02

one dollar, Never to sell my song.

26:05

But in that purchase, didn't

26:07

the musician Donovan begin

26:09

to take credit for the song, Well, you

26:11

know, Glenn Campbell recorded it. A

26:14

few other people recorded. Donovan was

26:16

a singer songwriter himself, and he only

26:19

sang his own songs except for two Universal

26:22

Soldier, which I wrote and Codine, which I also

26:24

wrote, And people

26:26

just assumed that Donovan wrote it, and

26:29

Donovan's management never told

26:31

anybody that I didn't, and

26:33

he was much to know you know, much better known

26:35

than I was. So people just assumed that he wrote Universal

26:38

Cold during Codine. But he knows he didn't,

26:40

and I know he didn't. You ever talked to him about

26:43

it? Oh yeah, it's just no big deal. You know,

26:45

people make mistakes. You don't take that kind of thing personally.

26:47

I just do not hang on to grudges.

26:50

They weigh you down. No in one ear

26:52

out the other. It's a new day. Let's go.

26:55

How do you do that? Just do it. I don't want

26:57

to have bad feelings giving me nightmares.

27:00

Here's a parallel philosophy. I don't read

27:02

horror comics. I don't go to horror movies.

27:05

I don't put that kind of stuff into

27:07

my imagination or into my archives,

27:10

are into my data bank. You know, I just don't.

27:12

I don't inhale that kind of stuff. I

27:14

keep my nose on the joy trail. It's

27:17

kind of a model, you know, keep your nose on the joy

27:19

trail. Follow the things that

27:21

you love and that you know that are good for you.

27:23

And if you're the kind of person who wants to be effective

27:26

at something, keeping nose on the joy trail,

27:28

don't follow some stupid you know, alcohol

27:31

trail or you know, cheating

27:34

money, thievery. You know, don't go down

27:36

roads that you don't really love.

27:39

Go down the roads that are really exciting

27:41

and meaningful to you. Life

27:44

can be quite simple. Actually,

27:46

recently I had a zoom call with the Dali

27:49

Lama and that was very, very wonderful.

27:51

And what I love about the Dalai Lama,

27:54

even though I'm not an official Buddhist, his

27:57

philosophy amounts to two things. Really

27:59

mindfulness, you know, just comment sense,

28:01

pay attention, yeah, and compassion.

28:04

Any question that you'll ask him will probably

28:06

come through one or both of those

28:09

concepts. Mindfulness and compassion.

28:12

Those two things, looking back, have served me

28:14

very well too. I pay attention and

28:16

I don't inhale stuffs that is bad

28:19

for me. Your

28:24

ability to avoid the bad stuff, to

28:26

stay on this joy trail. It's especially

28:29

inspiring because of all the

28:31

hardships you've faced. And yet I

28:33

realize using the word hardship

28:36

is maybe mischaracterizing how you actually

28:38

process difficult situations.

28:41

And I say that because in your biography,

28:44

the author has this passage that I

28:46

think is important. She wrote, at

28:48

one point in this biography, I

28:50

start a as sentence with the words tearing

28:53

down, and in the editing process,

28:55

Buffy crossed them out and provided this

28:57

alternative, creating in

29:00

spite of and beyond. Your

29:02

work is not defined by tearing down

29:05

systems, but creating in

29:07

spite of and beyond? Is

29:09

that fair to say it is? I

29:11

really feel as though a lot of good

29:14

effective work doesn't happen

29:16

because people think that they have to tear something

29:18

down. You have to tear

29:20

down the school, the government, the curriculum.

29:23

You have to tear it. You gotta tear it. You don't.

29:25

You just provide something better and everyone's

29:28

going to love it. That's it. I'll

29:30

tell you here's something that I tell people

29:32

off and it comes from a song that

29:35

nobody knows really. Song was

29:37

on some album I did in Nashville, Songs

29:39

called Jeremiah. But the last verse of it says

29:41

it says, some will tell you what you really want

29:43

ain't on the menu. Don't believe them, don't

29:45

believe them, cook it up yourself,

29:48

and then prepare to serve them,

29:51

serve them. See again. It goes

29:53

back to being a teacher in

29:56

love with the creator and creativity,

30:00

loving the process of delivering

30:03

something delicious, even

30:07

if it's of a little bit of a a

30:09

serious note, you know, a

30:11

serious topic. Well,

30:13

I guess we better play this song if you want to do Yeah.

30:15

A pretty good song. It's not very well known. This

30:18

is Jeremiah by Buffy Saint

30:20

Maria will tell you tell

30:23

you really won't

30:29

really fail. Don't

30:31

believe fail

30:34

up bail.

30:45

You're talking about making music that if you

30:47

don't see it on the menu, you have to do it yourself.

30:49

The music industry had preconceived

30:52

notions about the kind of songs that

30:55

you could make, or rather they had this idea

30:57

that you can only make a kind of protest

30:59

song or an indigenous song. And

31:02

the great irony of your career,

31:04

I think in some ways is that until

31:07

It's time for you to go is

31:09

actually the song that ends

31:12

up getting you into some trouble, which

31:14

is a love song. How does this happen?

31:17

You are so smart. Almost

31:19

nobody puts that together. Most people

31:21

think that I got blacklisted by

31:23

Johnson and Nixon because I wrote an Universal

31:26

Soldier. No, it's not that cut

31:28

and dride. I wrote Universal Soldier. Glenn

31:30

Campbell recorded that Donovan had he hit it

31:32

was all over the place. No,

31:35

I got in trouble as you've said, and very

31:37

few people were hip enough to know that. I got

31:39

in trouble because until It's time for You to Go as being

31:41

recorded by everybody and his sister, I

31:43

mean, Bobby Darren and Elvis Presley

31:46

and Barbara Streisan and Sonny

31:48

and Sheriff Share recorded it twice, Neil

31:51

Diamond, Chad Atkins, ROBERTA.

31:54

Flack, Johnny Mathis, Arthur Fiedler

31:56

and the Boston Pop's Orchestra. Everybody was

31:58

recording until It's Time for You to Go, And all of a sudden,

32:00

I was on The Tonight Show shooting my

32:02

mouth off about Indian issues. That's

32:05

what got me in trouble. What got me in

32:07

trouble is that my song got famous

32:09

and got me on television where

32:12

I expressed information

32:15

that certain people did not want

32:17

known, like oh, just singing

32:19

now that the Buffalo's gone. On the Tonight Show when

32:21

Harry Belafonte was hosting,

32:24

Now the Buffalo's gone. You know, we've already talked about

32:26

that. That's about the theft of an inland by a

32:28

bunch of slicks in hand in hand with

32:30

government. That's how you do it, boys, that's how

32:33

you do it. And I was saying

32:35

things like that on live television. And

32:38

the reason that I was on live television was

32:40

because all of a sudden, until it's

32:42

time for you to go was being recorded by people

32:45

who thought quite differently from me, as

32:47

well as may have agreed with me about political issues.

32:49

I think it's an important point that you've made.

32:52

It's not as though you have to be scared

32:54

to write something like Universal Soldier. You

32:56

don't. I don't like it when people think

32:58

that Universal Soldier is what got me in all

33:00

that trouble, because I think that's going to discourage

33:02

songwriters from, you know, telling the

33:04

truth and trying to be effective through songwriting,

33:07

which I think is a wonderful you can be able to do. I

33:09

mean, I have a whole lot of respect, By the way, for the three

33:11

and a half minute song. If you can say something

33:14

in three and a half minutes that somebody

33:16

else has to have a multimillion

33:18

dollar movie or a four hundred page textbook

33:21

that'll wind up on the shelf. No, you're better off

33:23

with a three and a half minute song. A song

33:25

is portable. You can play it on

33:27

any instrument, you can do it in different

33:30

languages, It can be done in

33:32

different styles and different genres, and

33:34

it's immediate, you know, and it's replicable.

33:37

So the song itself

33:39

is an incredible tool for change,

33:41

I think, and a lot of people I

33:43

think look look at me, especially

33:45

I mean in the US they do. In other countries they don't.

33:48

But in the US, because I was taken out so

33:50

early, you know, after the seventies, that people

33:52

didn't hear from me, and my fans thought I'd

33:54

retire or die or something. But in other countries

33:57

they continued, and consequently,

34:00

in the US it's a little different, and very

34:03

often people will look at me like a victimized,

34:06

you know, because of being indigenous, and because

34:08

I've written some real strong songs. A

34:10

lot of people think I'm real big because

34:12

the Universal Soldier is kind of ballsy. So

34:16

I would say that some of my songs have overshadowed

34:19

the diversity of things that I write

34:21

about and styles that I write in. And

34:24

because I didn't have teachers or I didn't have peer

34:26

pressure, I didn't know any better,

34:29

so I didn't concentrate only on one genre.

34:31

It's not as though I was in Nashville and you have

34:33

to deal country. Right. When I was in Nashville,

34:36

I was doing everything I was doing, some great rock and rolls,

34:38

some wonderful country, and lots of love songs. But

34:41

some people will will associate my

34:43

name with victimization or tragedy,

34:46

and they forget that the

34:48

only money I've ever made has been because

34:51

of love songs. But they don't know that I

34:53

wrote until It's time for You to Go, And they don't

34:55

know. They don't associate me with up where we belong.

34:57

They don't know. So it's

35:00

always interesting to cross the borders

35:02

and to realize that people

35:04

perceive you a little bit different. But it's all good.

35:06

It's all good. I do think they ought to perceive

35:08

you someone who also wrote

35:10

these remarkable love songs. So

35:13

why don't we play a bit from the track that would eventually

35:15

get you blacklisted? Until it's time

35:17

for you to go. You're not a man, You're

35:20

a mind. I've

35:23

got a queen. I'm a woman.

35:25

Take my hand. We

35:28

will make a space in the lives

35:31

that we'd plan, and

35:34

here will stay until

35:37

it's time for you

35:39

to go. What

35:45

were you thinking about as we were listening to that?

35:48

I kind of looked like you wanted to say something.

35:50

I'm I'm glad to talk to you today,

35:52

and if there's something, if there's one thing that

35:54

that would make me real happy, would

35:57

be if you know, there's some some up and coming

35:59

songwriters coming up who,

36:01

you know, wonder what it's like to

36:04

have gone through what I went through in

36:06

terms of the combination of being effective

36:09

and speaking out as a songwriter.

36:12

So you are an effective songwriter,

36:14

which got you into some trouble when

36:16

you're on the Tonight Show talking

36:18

about these issues, Are you

36:20

ever nervous? No? A

36:23

matter of fact, I went on Good Morning America

36:25

and I debated a congressman

36:27

and one. But I mean things like that.

36:29

It's not it's not the lyrics

36:32

to Universal Soldier. They get me on

36:34

a blacklist. You know, there are

36:36

people, congress people even, who

36:39

just don't want Indians or anybody

36:41

else having anything to do with the control

36:43

of all available lands and natural resources.

36:47

They want those reservations, they want to put

36:49

up condos. So you

36:51

know, that's the kind of atmosphere that you're dealing with.

36:54

It's like the heart and soul

36:56

of now that the Buffalo's gone is

36:58

very different from the heart and soul of

37:01

why these people don't want

37:03

Indian people to have control

37:05

of our own destinies. What

37:07

do you mean by that, I were to take too long to

37:10

really get into the details of the continual

37:13

land grabs. I mean, just the things

37:15

that are going on. You don't talk to Winona LaDuke,

37:17

by the way, Winona LaDuke from

37:19

ont of the Earth. She and many

37:22

other people, especially along the Canadian border

37:24

up in you know, Minneapolis, not Dakota.

37:26

They're dealing with Enbridge and other

37:28

oil companies who are

37:32

huge polluters and

37:34

huge law breakers. I mean Standing

37:36

Rock is an example of what I'm talking

37:39

about, and it's ongoing, and there

37:41

are oil companies that'll

37:43

just break all kinds of laws. I

37:45

know too much about the oil industry

37:48

fracking the Tar sands

37:51

in Canada to be able to give you

37:53

a little polite summary. We don't need anything

37:56

polite on the show. I

37:58

mean, this is a very issue week time in

38:00

our history. Oh my god. You know, between

38:02

the climate change COVID and

38:05

the political polarization

38:08

and kind of kus that's going

38:10

on right now, this is a very strange

38:12

time. This isn't the way it usually is. And

38:15

if there are Indian issues now, it's

38:18

very very hard to get any column space

38:20

on it. I just feel as th people

38:22

are not aware of any of

38:25

either the triumphs or the tragedies

38:27

of Indigenous people. And as a school

38:29

teacher with a guitar and

38:33

a microphone, I'm just thrilled

38:35

to spread that message. In

38:37

Canada, we're dealing with terrible, terrible

38:40

things and we're acknowledging them.

38:43

You and the US are also dealing with similar,

38:45

terrible terrible things, but you're not acknowledge

38:47

you don't even know about them. Missing and murdered Indigenous

38:50

women and girls is not a thing

38:52

in the US. The residential

38:54

schools, you know, the grave you know

38:56

they've been exhuming the graveyards in the backs

38:58

of the residential schools, and all these little

39:01

dead Indian kids, you know, who are

39:04

everything from just sex

39:07

toys for priests and nuns and Indian

39:10

agents. And I mean, the history

39:12

of residential schools is so tragic.

39:14

It's so tragic. It's all

39:16

over the news in Canada and

39:18

every child knows about it. And

39:20

as a schoolteacher and a mom myself,

39:23

you know, what I'm trying to provide

39:25

is the alternative to that. I'm

39:27

not trying to say that we shouldn't

39:30

talk about those issues. I'm saying, yes, those issues

39:32

are being talked about and are very real and important

39:34

for children to understand in a

39:37

child friendly way, but we

39:39

must we must also provide

39:42

the alternative, strong

39:44

positive information that

39:46

nobody talks about. For instance,

39:49

Okay, Britty Stone is going to be

39:51

a NFL season, It's going to be the Super Bowl,

39:54

it's going to be the Stanley Cup. Very few

39:56

people are aware that

39:58

team sports were invented by

40:01

indigenous people on this side of

40:03

the water. Team sports did

40:05

not exist in the rest

40:07

of the world. Even in the Greek Olympics,

40:09

they were all solo sports. The

40:11

concept of team sports that is huge.

40:15

The Mayan ball game, you know, thousand

40:17

years ago, two thousand years ago, they were

40:19

already playing team sports. Stadiums

40:23

with bleachers, goal

40:25

posted either goals at either end,

40:28

protective equipment like hip pads and

40:30

kneepads and shoulder pads, helmets

40:32

with animal logos. What does it sound like

40:35

we invented that. Our kids should

40:37

be able to claim that and celebrate that.

40:40

And that's only one of the many

40:42

contributions that are indigenous people if

40:44

the Americas have made to the entire

40:46

world. There are just a lot of inventions,

40:49

you know, things like rubber rubber

40:52

the rubber ball. That's why we

40:54

had We had team sports, and you guys didn't maybe

40:57

and rubber ball. You

40:59

know, in a way, it brings me down in a

41:01

way when I think about our kids

41:03

who don't know these things, and

41:05

it brings me down even a little further. When I realized

41:08

that schools, systems for which I have been

41:10

trained to work unaware

41:12

of these things. I had

41:14

a very very wonderful experience

41:18

when I took a break after Sesame Street.

41:21

I took a break for fifteen years to raise my

41:23

son, and I really wanted

41:25

to follow up on the idea that I've been talking about. I

41:27

really wanted to write

41:29

a new kind of curriculum,

41:32

but I mean core curriculum

41:35

that included Indigenous

41:37

people. And most people don't know what core curriculum

41:39

is. Core curriculum all the subjects that everybody

41:42

agrees need to be taught in a school, like

41:44

you know, science and geography and social

41:47

studies, government stuff like that, and

41:50

just like you don't have to tear anything down

41:52

to make it better. I wrote up this curriculum

41:55

including indigenous people, science

41:58

through Native American eyes, geography

42:00

through Native American eyes, government through

42:02

Native American eyes. I mean, what does

42:05

that look like? It means

42:07

that in the

42:08

US, kids in New York

42:11

and kids in California, kids

42:13

all over the country have to Matt.

42:15

They have to be studying certain things at certain

42:17

time in their education. So

42:19

if your kid moves from New York to California,

42:22

we have to know that at grade five, they're still going

42:24

to be studying the principles of sound. And

42:26

there's no reason why you have to teach the principles

42:28

of sound just in a flat surface

42:31

book that has a graph. What nobody

42:33

noticed? How are you going to learn the difference between frequency

42:35

and amplitude like that? I gave them

42:38

sliders in their computers, so that like

42:40

a little recording studio. I mean, once

42:42

you play with two sliders and one of them is amplitude

42:44

and is getting louder, he's getting soft and is getting

42:46

louder, and it's getting solded. That's amplitude amplitude.

42:49

You're giving Tim, our engineer a heart at time all

42:51

he's diasauri. Tim. There's

42:54

no reason why we have to teach frequency

42:56

and amplitude and other sounds just through

42:58

tubers and pianos and European instruments.

43:02

You can teach exactly the same thing through

43:04

a study of drums,

43:07

flutes, an apache, feel, a

43:10

mouthbow, singing rattles.

43:14

So we teach core science

43:17

through an indigenous perspective. The

43:19

kids are rewarded with an indigenous people's

43:21

jukebox where they can hear, you know, everything from a

43:23

tribe called Red to you

43:26

know, pow wow. And I had

43:28

started a scholarship foundation

43:31

in about nineteen sixty eight, I

43:33

guess then the Human Foundation

43:35

for Native American Education. And

43:39

in working with a lifetime

43:42

of like minded people who are on

43:44

a good trip, I've had the unique

43:46

experience of working with a

43:49

wk Kellogg Foundation, the Ford

43:51

Foundation. They all supported

43:53

my little Credible Board teaching project for

43:55

a number of years and we

43:57

modeled it in eighteen states and many

44:00

places in Canada. But what's

44:02

important is not the business,

44:04

because I never tried to turn it into a

44:06

business. I'm not good with business.

44:09

I don't really believe in it. I think there's just too much

44:12

room for corruption. And I think that

44:14

many, many, many, many many businesses

44:16

are only about, you know, take as much

44:18

as you can get and give the least you can. I

44:21

think that life

44:24

in a circle, in an indigenous

44:26

way is quite different from the hierarchical

44:29

pyramid model of take as much as

44:31

you can get and give the least you can, you know, keep those

44:33

people under you working for you. It's

44:35

just old fashioned. It's obsolete, you

44:38

know. If life is in a circle,

44:40

as you say, perhaps that's why you've

44:42

dedicated so much of your

44:44

time here with children, teaching

44:47

them, encouraging them, paying

44:49

it forward. And I wonder what

44:51

do you think spending time with kids has

44:54

done for you and also your music.

44:56

I don't know. I got a chance, so I was interested

44:59

in electronics. I'm

45:01

interested in things like a kid

45:03

is interested in things. I'm interested

45:05

in anything I'll make noise, you

45:08

know, banging on parts pans or playing a piano,

45:10

or picking up something that has some strings in it.

45:12

But maybe it comes from a different country, and I don't

45:14

know what to do with it. Natural musicians, we

45:16

can have fun with all that stuff, you know, and it's no

45:19

big deal. And electronic music for me

45:21

was the same thing. I approached it playfully.

45:23

It was fun. I didn't have, you know,

45:25

I didn't have to pass a course on it. I

45:27

didn't have to write code, and you didn't

45:30

have to know what you were doing. You were experimenting

45:32

and it was fun. And really that's

45:35

all there is to it. It's as simple as that. Keep

45:37

your nose on the joy trail and have some fun with

45:40

music. It's not a chore. It's not work.

45:42

If it is. If it is, you're not in the same

45:44

business I am. Anyway, I know that there's

45:46

different ways to go about music, but I

45:49

like to play it in the sixties, when

45:51

you were first starting out, you always have this quote,

45:53

which is, I never thought it was going to last.

45:55

I didn't. I never thought it would lead to anything.

45:58

And as we leave, I'm thinking about

46:00

how on the fifth floor

46:03

of the Academy Museum you

46:05

were there alongside these other trail

46:08

plays women. Yes, we're an honor.

46:11

You're going to see it for the first time

46:13

tonight. It's kind of remarkable

46:15

that you and I are talking before you do this. But

46:18

how do you think you'll feel? Oh, I already feel.

46:20

I mean, I'm already I already feel honored by it. I found

46:22

out about it, you know, a couple of months ago, so it's really

46:25

really nice, and I was real sorry that I couldn't come

46:27

in and really be happy with it. But Saturday

46:30

night, I am able to participate

46:32

in the honoring of my Academy

46:34

award is going to be West

46:36

Duty West. Last

46:38

year he received an honorary Academy

46:40

Award for his body of work, which of course

46:43

is wonderful. Tantot Cardinal,

46:45

who's one of our foremost actresses. Oh

46:47

my god, she's an incredible actress.

46:50

Robbie Robertson, who needs no introduction.

46:53

Oh when I'm the fourth one we're

46:56

being honored for as Indigenous

46:58

people. And I was the first

47:01

and for a very long time, the only Indigenous

47:04

person to receive an Academy

47:06

award, what they call a competitive

47:08

Academy award wests is honorary.

47:11

But Taiku Waiti, who so

47:14

well known now from New Zealand, he now

47:16

is the second Indigenous person. So

47:18

for a long time I was the first and only Indigenous

47:21

person. Now

47:23

we have you know, the Academy is trying

47:25

to open to a bit more diversity,

47:27

thank goodness. And there are

47:29

a lot of good people, especially Bird Running Water,

47:32

who are really helpful. You know, it's

47:34

hard for a big institution like the Academy,

47:36

or you know, any institution

47:38

really to know the grassroots,

47:41

to know the inner circle, to know the

47:43

people who are really productive but might not be

47:46

easy to find. So we

47:48

have a team who have been doing that, and it

47:51

ought to be really a lot of fun tomorrow night. I don't know

47:53

what to expect. I don't have any expectations, so I

47:55

know, have a good time. It's always

47:57

better to not have expectations. Although

47:59

I'm sure you're going to have a good time. And

48:02

it's true you won that Oscar in nineteen

48:04

eighty three for co writing

48:06

up where we Belong, But this

48:08

fullhearted celebration of you and

48:11

your work, it's long overdue

48:13

in this country, and it's

48:16

this country that I want to sit with for a moment

48:19

to do that. Why don't we play a bit from this song.

48:22

It's one of my favorites, called

48:24

America my home, I

48:30

knew the

48:36

favorite and

48:41

far faring

48:50

everywhere. When

49:01

I'm beyond the stars my

49:05

country and my life,

49:09

my mother and in

49:24

Hawaii with all of your animals

49:26

and pets. You make me smile

49:29

when you go back there. Yeah, you had a long

49:31

search for finding home.

49:34

Do you think you found it? Oh? Yeah? I

49:36

love living where I live. It's not as

49:38

though I'm a hermit, but um I live in nature.

49:40

I live in the mountains in Hawaii. You know,

49:43

it's not like I'm on a beach

49:45

and Maui. It's not like that at all. And

49:47

that really is home, and it's partly

49:49

home because of what's not there.

49:52

Like I said, I'm on the road all the time. I live in

49:54

cities. I'm in Paris and Oslo and Sydney

49:56

and la and you know, I'm all over.

49:59

But my recharge really

50:02

time to say, my recharge comes when I'm

50:04

in nature and at home with animals and

50:06

pets. I live at the end of the rain

50:09

bill and for the last

50:11

hour, I have to Buffy Saint Murray, thank

50:13

you very much, Thank you too, And

50:46

that's our show special thanks to Lauren

50:48

Mealy, Jean Seevers, Lexi Dayton,

50:50

True North Records, and of course Buffy

50:53

Saint Marie. To learn more about

50:55

Buffy's work, visit our show notes

50:57

at talk easypod dot

50:59

com. There you'll find a back catalog

51:02

of over two hundred and fifty episodes.

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51:58

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52:00

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52:03

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52:08

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52:10

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52:17

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52:19

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52:22

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52:24

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52:26

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52:29

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52:32

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52:37

Gambrel, Jacob Weisberg,

52:40

and Malcolm Gladow. I'm Sam Fragoso.

52:42

Thank you for listening to talk easy.

52:45

Happy holidays to you and yours. I'll

52:47

see you back here next Sunday. Until then,

52:50

stay safe and solo.