Deportee 2018

My newest video. Excuse the vocals. I mustn't let my voice stop me from singing.

Adaptation of Woody Guthrie's "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos." Performed by Larkworthy Antfarm in the folk tradition of re-purposing old lyrics to new times. Art by Save Me Oh. Film footage from Prelinger Archives (public domain).

new lyrics:
Deportee
D G D
The Border Patrol is building a wall
D G D
To stop the illegals from wading up north.
G D
Arresting them all at the Mexican border
G A7 D
Taking their babies and locking them up.

G D
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
A D A7 D
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
G D
You better have your papers when the Border Patrol comes
A A7 D
Or all they will call you will be "deportees."

My mother's own mother, she waded that river,
They took all the money she made in her life;
My brothers and sisters come seeking asylum,
And they put them in cages and laughed while they cried.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
They’re building a wall and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rapists and thieves.

Kidnapped on your borders, and jailed in your deserts,
Lost in your valleys and buried on your plains.
You took our babies, and still we don’t know where.
Both sides of the river, we’re jailed just the same.

The sky plane flew over the detention center,
Carrying our infants and children away
Who are these lost ones all scattered like dry leaves?
The newspaper says, "They are just deportees"

Whose hearts are broken, whose wailing is heard?
Where are the children? And what have we done?
Little dry leaves to be lost by ICE agents
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

on edit: Please go to my Youtube channel and like and subscribe. I need the numbers. For some reason, DU did not post my video to the home page. So I need to keep kicking it up for visibility.