Native Joy For Real

Native Joy for Real
The Songs

[Joy Harjo describes on her blogsite the ten songs on this
incredible album]


We’re in an immense story in a world that we are about to destroy
with our inner demons of jealousy, anger, greed and fury.
NATIVE JOY FOR REAL is a song sequence about that journey.

1) On the journey we encounter enemies. We struggle.
We could be destroyed or we can use the power for gathering
together. Whatever we choose, we will know ourselves utterly
when it is finished. And whatever happens, we are in it together.
There are no winners, no losers. "The Last World of Fire and Trash"
is the anthem. It’s song, poetry and danceable.

2) Rare moments of grace illuminate, give us a little light
to maneuver. They happen in the strangest of places and times:
walking home at dusk, or just after dawn in a greasy spoon.
The song "Grace" is a solo human voice singing in that last array
of golden sundown in the middle of the longest winter of the year.

3) Fear assaults and can take us down. We must address this enemy
head on, and in a manner so that fear must respond, maybe even
work for us. "Fear Song" speaks to fear, personally.
It’s edgy, contemporary and new. The spirits are gathered.
We might as well dance.

4) We are tested. Once we lived in communities and in a way
of thinking where neighborhood children were our own.
We used to run freely between houses to visit and eat.
Now children are killing each other and us.
What have we come to? "Hold Up" is a wild response to this
dilemma, something to see us through the chaos.

5) What if there’s nothing left in the cabinet to eat
but a bag of commodity rice and corn syrup? You’ve lost
your boyfriend, wife or lover. The boss tells you to forget
coming in, the kids don’t have shoes or lunch money
and the rent’s due. You crawl out to the ledge of the city
you came to for salvation. "The Woman Hanging From the
Thirteenth Floor Window" is your cry, your howl.

6) And then love. We all need love,
so here’s a love song with "This is My Heart."

7) Our beloved earth spins through the blue breath of atmosphere.
Our breathing links us. Words are born of this.
"Nizhoniigo" is a Navajo word that expresses beauty and harmony
breathing through us. It is wound through hip hop here,
to protect all of those vulnerable ones walking through the world.
This is the "Reality Show". Put several billion people on a planet
of fresh water, beautiful land with billions of animals, birds,
insects, fish and other creatures. Give everyone enough to eat,
enough light, dark, rain and sun. Wait a few million years.
See what happens.

8) In our ongoing story we must stop and acknowledge the gift.
We can’t do it alone. The eagle represents the highest level
of thinking and being in this earth world. "Eagle Song"
is a prayer to acknowledge the gift.

9) "Morning Song" is a haunting tune is to acknowledge
the promise of dawning: of morning, of a new life
in the womb of a mother, in the impending death
of a beloved old man.

10) So in the end, after the sun goes down, we lay it all down.
We lay it all down and dance. We no longer live in a world
in which we listen to only Muskoke Creek music, or rock and roll,
or r&b, or gospel or Indian church music. We are living
in a cross over world and we are crossing over.
So, let’s dance with the "Had-It-Up-To-Here Round Dance."

Laugh, cry, celebrate!

Joy Harjo