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The Boy Who walked Backwards Through The Snow

from Gone to Bolivia by Ben Sures

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about

This song was inspired by a true story told to me by Janet Day-Mowat. It is about her father and his experience escaping residential school. The song is also available on the Truth and Reconciliation on residential schools compilation cd.

lyrics

The boy who walked Backwards through the snow by Ben Sures 2009

I’m the last full blood from Serpent River
That’s what he told his daughter on the day that he died
He kept asking about a moose and crossing some great river
She did not know what he meant right to the last instant that her fingers closed his eyes

The last full blood from Serpent River
The boy who fooled the nuns and didn’t show
the last of a kind there will be none left behind
The boy who walked backwards through the snow

As a child they dragged him, off to residential school
Where they cut his hair and told him what language to speak
But he and his buddies, would form secret huddles
whisper the words of their mother tongue Be damned if the sisters come
Be damned if they didn’t speak

The last full blood from Serpent River
The boy who fooled the nuns and didn’t show
the last of a kind there will be none left behind
The boy who walked backwards through the snow

they let him home for the holidays, he swore to not return
to the school and english syllables, killer of individuals,
short haircuts for Indians not the man on the cross
So he walked backwards through the snow, hid inside the treeline
When the sisters came collecting, they were so unsuspecting
He was there but he didn’t show


The last full blood from Serpent River
The boy who fooled the nuns and didn’t show
the last of a kind there will be none left behind
The boy who walked backwards through the snow

Now that boy is an old man, he’s lying on his deathbed
Speaking in a tongue the nuns would never understand
I am the last full blood from Serpent river
That’s what he told his daughter on the day that he died

credits

from Gone to Bolivia, released November 1, 2014
written by Ben Sures performed by John Showman, Don Kerr, Kathryn Rose, Brian Kobayakawa and Ben

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Ben Sures Edmonton, Alberta

Ben Sures sings in English, French and Spanish. Plays mostly folk meets roots meets world originals and and a few cover songs by Boubacar Traore, Los Zafiros and Blind Lemon Jefferson. He more recently has dabbled in electronic collaboration.

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