[Lyric] The Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache (Vincent Neil Emerson)

[Verse 1]
Well the East Texas wind was whistlin' through the pines
And I followed it down to Lousiane
There is a tribe and it ain't too hard to find
Where the rich man came and flooded all the land
They had no mercy on the people old and young
They were blinded by the silver on their tongues
All the land that they take, just to build themselves a lake
Well it ain't worth all the lives that you forsake

[Chorus]
Well 180,000 acres of ancestral land
That Sabine river bottom, flooded by the dam
I am a proud Choctaw-Apache man
But it just don't mean a thing to the faces in your hand

[Verse 2]
Well back in 1963 the land of the proud, the brave and the free
But it ain't that way for everyone you see
They washed out the land so be careful where you stand
Like a boulder fallin' on a grain of sand
Well I hope that dirty reservoir was worth all of the lives you scarred
And the people you left hangin' out to dry
[] knows that they tried their best to turn the tide
But there ain't no sense in waitin' 'round to die
[Chorus]
Well 180,000 acres of ancestral land
That Sabine river bottom, flooded by the dam
I am a proud Choctaw-Apache man
But it just don't mean a thing to the faces in your hand

[Verse 3]
Well my granny was a native from the parish of Sabine
And she raised her children the best way she knew how
They lived off the Earth back before the times of dearth
They counted on the seed and the plow
But the crops they all drowned in the water rushin' down
Only 25 bucks an acre they were paid
Well you take away their home then you claim what you don't own
Well I guess it's still the American way

[Chorus]
Well 180,000 acres of ancestral land
That Sabine river bottom, flooded by the dam
I am a proud Choctaw-Apache man
But it just don't mean a thing
Oh it just don't mean a thing
Well it just don't mean a thing
To the faces in your hand