Susanna Little Songtext

von Grant Lee Phillips

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Gone 'fore I ever arrived
Questions that stream through my own Creek blood
The odyssey of your life

A motherless child, you were torn from your home
By decree of the county affairs
Good Christians, they gave you a lily-white dress
And shorn back that Indian hair

Told ya study your Bible, be silent and still
And take to the ways of the whites
Nothin' they offered could break down your will
For you ran for the gates one night

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Gone 'fore I ever arrived
Questions that stream through my own Creek blood
Stories that keep you alive

Your daddy, Joe Little, had woes of his own
Drink was much stronger than greed
But some in the city felt native red hands
Were no place to let rest a deed

Oklahoma was rich with the stench of black oil
And the men who came there to drill
In the sun baked clay of Indian lands
There, in the desolate fields

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Gone 'fore I ever arrived
Questions that stream through my own creek blood
Songs that'a keep you alive

Mysterious crimes, oh they swept through the county
Waving the finger of blame
Eyes turned to Joe Little
A couple too many acres of land to his name

No one would have heard the lone shot in the night
They never posted his bail
Big Joey Little, never walked out
Of Sheriff Stanton's jail

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Gone 'fore I ever arrived
Questions that stream through my own Creek blood
The odyssey of your life

For all of the lives you had lived this far
No part of you could have known
The evil hearts of the men who would fetch ya
One night by the side of the road

The moon, it grew dark and the frost would form
Before ya finally were found
Chained to a log in a torn white dress
Shakin' wild eyed on the ground

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Gone 'fore I ever arrived
Questions that stream through my own creek blood
Such were the trials of your life...

Yet in the years to come, you took a man
Raised five of your own
And for a spell it was as almost as though
The light of justice had shown

The hand that had written this part but for you
And made it all plenty hard
Gave you a gusher, a well spring of oil
There in your own back yard

So pile them kids in the plush back seat
Ridin' shotgun in the Packard to town
With your man, Tom Fisher, one hand on the wheel
The other on your knee now

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Gone 'fore I ever arrived
Questions that stream through my own Creek blood
The odyssey of your life

Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Sussana Little
Sussana Little