Calico Indians

Oh how we used to hate the sight
Of the evil rent collector coming in the night
Got to tied for 40 bushels, but it don't seem right
Up to the manor house to pay the Great Patroon

We had taken our wilderness
And turned the Earth to bounty by the rake's caress
Never owning what we tilled below the crescent moon
Up to the manor house to pay the Great Patroon

The sheriff was about to sell the cows
Or otherwise extort the rent
So they met in barns and in out of the way places
To scheme all night on how to get the rent

What do you wear for civil war in 1844
In upstate New York?
What do you wear for civil war in 1844
In upstate New York?

These Indians wore Calico dresses
They were belted at the waist
Red flannel pantaloons or
Those masks ..... looking things
With fringe around the neck
Horns upon their forehead
Course animal hair put on for a beard
At the pow-wow among the grotesque
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The chief wore a striped calico young lady's dress

Blow on the tin dinner horn over the valley
Call all the formerly normal men to revolt and rally
The Feudal Land Laws should be abolished
What are you waiting for? it's 1844!
The worm has begun to turn

I saw those Calicos scorn and spurn their accusers
With threatening talk and rough, tough threatening gestures
The feeling was stronger and stronger
(Stronger and stronger)
They tried to talk like real Indians might:
"Me want cider" and the like
Many a head had worn this crown of feathers
I tried to be the leader of the Anti-Rent Rioters
I recognized it as having belonged to a left-handed neighbor
Ooh a little Indian man called Sander ....

Blow the tin dinner horn over the valley
Call all the formerly normal men to revolt and rally
The Feudal Land Laws should be abolished
What are you waiting for, it's 1844?
The worm has begun to turn

Three, four, five, waaah!
Waaah!