Wheel of Fortune
Train goes east along the river
All the way to Spokane
Tourists line the dirty windows
Hold their cameras to the glass
See the red sails on the water
What a lovely wall of stone
So I ask a newfound neighbor
Does she know the stories told
Of the fisherwomen grieving
The day Celilo Falls were drowned
Next day the train is somewhere in Nebraska
Thunder’s fading slowly to the right
Prairieland just seems to go forever
Broken only by the fencing lines
See the bison sleeping in the shadows
No, a woman laughs, they all have died
So I ask my foolish neighbor
Does she know the stories told
Of the men and women fighting
For the spirit of the buffalo
Sunday night the train gets to Chicago
Where people live like beetles in a jar
The evening sky is smokey gray above me
And I pay a man to drive me in a car
See the amber lights that flash forever
Standing on the 27th floor
Here I’ll never know my neighbor
But her TV tells a story through the wall
Of the man who spins the wheel of fortune
And sells his mother with his other hand
Can’t you see the bison in the shadows
Or do you believe they all have died
Better grab your nearest neighbor
Listen to the stories told
Of the men and women fighting
For the spirit of the buffalo