[Intro: Atmospheric wind SFX, distant native vocal chant] [Beat Intro: Slow, sparse sub-bass creeps in] Wind on the plains and the night runs cold, Feet hit the earth while the story gets told. They took the land, but we still got hope— Round and round, and we never let go. [Beat Drop: Aggressive modern trap beat, heavy 808s] [Chorus: Layered group vocals, urgent and anthemic] Dance till the buffalo come back home! Dance for the land that we used to know! Round and round, let the whole earth roll, They can stop the dance, but they can't stop hope! Dance till the buffalo come back home! Dance for the ways that we used to know! Hands to the sky, feet down below— Ghost Dance calling us home. [Verse 1: Fast, crisp cypher delivery] Eighteen-eighty-nine and the word caught flame, Ghost Dance moving all across the plains. Dreaming of the buffalo filling up the land, Dreaming of the life that the elders had planned. Settlers would leave and the old ways return, Hope moved fast and the movement burned. More joined in and the circle got wide... But fear started growing on the other side. [Chorus: Layered group vocals, heavy bass] Dance till the buffalo come back home! Dance for the land that we used to know! Round and round, let the whole earth roll, They can stop the dance, but they can't stop hope! [Verse 2: Driving cadence, rising tension] Government watching, they wanted it banned, Fear in the offices, fear of the dance. They blamed Sitting Bull, said he led the wave, Police came looking just to take him away. Tension got high and the whole thing broke— Sitting Bull died and the fear only rose. Winter came down with the pressure on ten, Hundreds of Lakota gathered again. [Bridge: Music strips completely down, solo vocal, haunting acoustic element] Wounded Knee in the December snow, Army rode in and surrounded the road. Came for the weapons, told 'em let 'em go... Nobody knew how far this would go. [Sudden Explosive Drop: Hardest beat switch, aggressive distorted bass] [Verse 3: Double-time rapid-fire delivery] One gun fired and the whole scene changed! Army opened fire all across the plains! More than two hundred Lakota were gone— Men, women, children when the firing was done. Twenty-five soldiers had fallen there too, Wounded Knee left a scar running through. Armed resistance was reaching its end, But nobody there would forget what happened! [Final Chorus: Maximum intensity, wall of sound] Dance though the buffalo don't come home! Dance for the land that we used to know! Round and round, hear the old wind blow, They stopped the dance, but they couldn't stop hope! Dance for the stories that still live on! Dance so the memory never gets lost! Hands to the sky, feet down below— Ghost Dance calling us home. [Outro: Beat abruptly cuts out on the final word, pure atmospheric silence] Wind on the plains where the buffalo ran... Ghost of a dance still tied to the land. Wounded Knee where an era would close... But memory lives... wherever it goes. [Fade to black]
