CHET SINGH OCCUPATION NATION

LYRICS AND TEXT OF THE CHET SINGH RELEASE OCCUPATION NATION!

1. OCCUPATION NATION

We living in a permanent state of war

They say keep fighting freedom liberty for all

Politicians starve our children sell of the land

Corporates bleed the earth and sell us the scam

Take away our rights work us to the bone

Trap us with laws, endless isms and schisms

We living in a permanent state of war

The man selling weapons says the enemy is near

He solemnly declares, We’re good people here,

Over there are the people you need to fear

Peace justice equity is what we need - Live consciously

justice and liberty is what we want - Live environmentally

Everything you do someone’s watching you

Just passing through it’s the culture of fear

Hey what you got in that bag over there?

Why aren’t you waving the national flag?

Everything you do someone’s watching you

Every step you take confined in a zoo

Don’t know whose watching who

Freedom is Slavery - Slavery is Freedom

Peace is War - War is Peace

Everyone’s a police in this culture of fear

Don’t know who is watching who …………………….

2. Highway 115

Highway 115 overdrive – someone will not survive the drive

I ride will with the scribes of an arrogant quest - progress

Leave evidence for the crows to feast

When the evergreens rise up cut them down

We manicure the scenery

On black asphalt, bright red gash

Something Dead, Nothing said

Smog drifts over the of the scene

No one investigates the crime

Deer, raccoonsquirrel,

Groundhog, foxturtle,

catbirdskunk,

Foxfrogchipmunk

HY 115 overdrive – someone will not survive the drive

I don’t look at the eyes - or the moment of surprise

Chorus Jarret

Watch the tongue roll with the technology

I Keep Focused on whirl the machinery

Journey without apology keep your dignity

Sip your coffee you need the energy

Highway 115 over drive – someone will not survive this drive

They tell us, Don’t look back, attack the future,

The planet’s getting hotter, compost the fair trade coffee.

Recycle and sedate your morality, meditate on the mantra of diesel grind

 verse

3. Map of Violence

Who comes to disturb the soft comfort of moonlight?

Breaks down your front door with all their might,

Spills blood on your table cloth,

Smashes your china before bulldozing your house?

Who burns your grandmothers olive trees like garbage?

Who wishes you’d make friends with the devil

so that they could sleep at night?

Everyone knows there can be no peace without justice

Even that young soldier with a map of violence in his eyes

Our benefactors invite us to the banquet of diplomacy

The bouquet of roses smells like oil and the wine tastes like sand

We get drunk on rhetoric and dance on the bones of the past.

Then we smile and shake hands for the bribe

Who comes to disturb the soft comfort of moonlight?

It’s the young soldier with a map of violence

We are so used to the stench of brutality

that the flowers hang their heads in shame

chorus Jarret

The sky is white with phosphorous

In our cities the confetti is always dangerous

Your heart is frozen in the desert sun where your grandmother

stroked your hair yesterday - and today in your memories

Who is terrorizing the morning air

as you languish behind monuments that block the sun?

And why are you still looking for your grandmother under contested ground?

Suburbs sprout and children shout

And now the children have forgotten the meaning of fear

They carry dangerous scars on their backs

Just like the soldier’s face forever carries the map of violence

Nothing can cover up the stains of this story

Because there will be no peace without justice

For all of us

4. Children of the Dust

Among the bombs and smoldering ashes

Toxic dust settles in the abyss

A thousand people scatter in the street

The weight of history attached to our feet

Hide in the shadow of pride and prejudice

Falter dangerously on the edge of the precipice

We fight for justice and what do we find

Peace in our time is a state of mind

Stamp out war crush humanity

Blood rain in the sky of every city

We are the passengers scattered like confetti,

One step forward one step backward

Travel in time with the rhyme of infinity

Travel in time with the rhyme of crime

I’ll hurt you if you hurt what’s mine

And you can hurt me the next time

Chorus Jarret

Fight for justice and what do we find?

Peace in our time is a state of mind

Fall for prophets who fake the look of innocence

Tell us difference must be met with violence

Tell us we are we are the children of a higher power

They Shower us with love and messages from above

Good and evil bears such close resemblance

In the end there will be no one left to tell the difference

Hate and love will die with us along with greed gold and lust

and peace at last can rule supreme over ashes charcoal and dust

Fight for justice and what do we find?

Peace in our time is a state of mind…………….Chorus Jarret

5. Red Canoe

This red canoe moves silent through time under a red moon

Speaks Cree, Haida, Ojibwa, English, French, and Swahili

Remembers fur traders, invasions, rebellions, and genocide

Still carries Sweet grass medicine bundles wild rice

This canoe knows the Medicine wheel, has sat outside long houses with elders

Remembers Small pox poisoned blankets the unmarked graves of residential children

This canoe listens to token apologies and official stories that suggest ‘Everything is settled’

I like to think I bought this canoe

I like to think I can own this canoe

I think ‘I am Canadian’ - Molson Canadian

On Canada day I wave my made in China Canadian Flag

This canoe has not been conquered by any nation

Will outlive the Indian Act

This canoe has not marched in multicultural parades

Will not perform for the queen

You cannot interpret this canoe in a museum

This canoe is alive

On ancient rock face I stroke its birch skin

Whale belly ribs exposed in womb of earth and sky

 This red canoe is the flow of creation

When will I learn the language of this canoe?

Chorus Jarret

6. Idensity Theory

I am living creation one love generation

My identity is 500 years of history

Divided and conquered separated from ancestry

Artificial borders police privilege and poverty

So we yearn for the memory of the perfect tribe

I just want to know your vibes and how you live your life

Still you look at me with sureity – check it

My identity is my personal destiny

What’s written in this body it’s your theory

I’m here to defy your history

Every life is a complicated story

I am living creation one love generation

Some say Indian some say African

I say, Caribbean, remember the original Amerindian

Chorus Jarret

Don’t know my ancestors or their origin

To me nothing is foreign

I have no nationalistic yearning

I am a living man I never stop learning

These eyes and ears Are always open,

I am a nomad my nation is in my head

 I don’t play the game of divide and conquer

I am living creation one love generation

So will say Queer, Some say normal

I say Caribbean, and remember the original Amerindian

I have been contaminated by history

I am not humbled by mythology but by those who inspire me

 My culture is reggae, soul, bangra

My nation is mother earth my religion is nature

My tongue longs for metingee, ackee, and roti

if you don’t get me, Is because I don’t fit your theory

If you want to label me, do you know this mystery?

Chorus Jarret

If you want to label me, do you know this mystery?

I am living creation one love generation

I am a human being living in the present

living in the past /living in the future

I am earth, I am water, I am trees, moon and breeze

7. Natural Nature

I canoe to this secret place

There’s your face in the old stone fence

Along the path weathered rows of

Lichen and spearmint glow

On ancient ground below

I gather wood for fire,

Sit and watch time flicker

Kra Kra of crow, rapids ebb and flow

Whippoorwill and loon

announce evening winds and astral moon,

Coals waver and die, smoke drifts to sky

In darkness your eyes softly beckon

To well worn path of bear and deer

Deep inside the boreal forest

To a place beyond fear

Majestic pine and poplar everywhere

This is the engine of my religion

8. Madawaska

River valley bears poplar and pine everywhere

Black flies swarm, ravens dance

Indian paint brush, Queen Anne’s lace

You and me have found our place

There’s the smell danger everywhere

Previous events begin to linger in the air

Who does this land belong to?

Who belongs to this land?

We are strangers here. What’s happening here?

 A hunter’s lookout, a wolf’s lair?

Who does this land belong to?

Who belongs to this land?

If we could speak to the Majestic pine

They would challenge the Historian’s line

Are we intruders, are we strangers?

Why has someone stolen our gate,

Uprooted property stakes?

Who does this land belong to?

Who belongs to this land?

Down steep banks rock bass bask

Black spruce shade cardinal flowers

Humming birds hover over boulders and rapids

I swim about the bass they unafraid

Our eyes meet, our bodies touch

They will be no fishing for dinner or lunch

Who does this land belong to?

Who belong to this land?

Thoughts interrupted, feelings of dread

Low flying music- military jets overhead

 I am in “Harpers Land”

My only refuge in my mind

I could be displace at any time

Who does this land belong to?

Who belongs to this land?

10. Control the Scenery

Jarret’s verse….

I camouflage myself like a shy animal

But my skin won’t blend in with the scenery

I am so invested in the life that I’ve become

I stretch the truth

I am sure of who I am

I think I can control nature

Everything hangs in balance

That’s why I like the bush

Here nothing is random

I am a thread in the tapestry of the whole

A bead of dew hangs on a blade of grass

It could fall at any moment

Sacred with realization

That nothing is what it seems

Jarret’s verse

A founding member of the Dub Poets Collective, and former board member of the Ontario Arts Council, he is recognized as of one of the pioneers of dub poetry and spoken work in Canada.
As a human rights activist he also worked with postsecondary educational institutions to change the system from within; Singh was fired or forced to leave all of his human rights positions (except York University). Now a college professor, he recently received several teaching awards for his
work on transforming the curriculum including Centennial College’s Board of Governor’s teaching excellence award, the John and Suanne Roueche Excellence Award for outstanding contributions to teaching, leadership and learning in post-secondary education and the Association of Canadian
Community Colleges silver award for teaching excellence.

Singh uses the metaphorical force of music and poetry as a continuum of his activism. He not only seeks to expose injustice, but also explores the ways that we are all implicated in these processes. Jamaican born Singh embraces the creolization processes of the Caribbean and Canada’s diverse cultural landscapes and continues to incorporate various influences such as funk and jazz within the foundational back drop of dub.