Environmental Activism Any Redneck Can Appreciate

One of the Donna The Buffalo songs I’m enjoying at the moment is “Seminole Wind,” off of their 1998 Sugar Hill release, Rockin’ In the Weary Land.

It’s a cover song, made famous by country artist, John Anderson.

Seminole Wind
Lyrics and Music by John Anderson

Ever since the days of old,
Men would search for wealth untold.
They’d dig for silver and for gold,
And leave the empty holes.
And way down south in the Everglades,
Where the black water rolls and the saw grass sways.
The eagles fly and the otters play,
In the land of the Seminole.

So blow, blow Seminole wind,
Blow like you’re never gonna blow again.
I’m calling to you like a long lost friend,
But I know who you are.
And blow, blow from the Okeechobee,
All the way up to Micanopy.
Blow across the home of the Seminole,
The alligators and the gar.

Progress came and took its toll,
And in the name of flood control,
They made their plans and they drained the land,
Now the glades are going dry.
And the last time I walked in the swamp,
I sat upon a Cypress stump,
I listened close and I heard the ghost,
Of Osceola cry.

This song–Florida’s state anthem–has echoes of Peter Rowan’s “Land of the Navajo.”