Song of the Day 7/22: Paul Revere and the Raiders, “Indian Reservation”
Donald Trump is impressive, in a twisted way: He manages to give voice to every moronic, bigoted opinion you’d hear from the drunk at the end of the bar, all without touching a drop. In most people, that kind of belligerent ignorance comes only after years of destroying brain cells with alcohol. Trump is that way naturally.
His latest bit of reactionary revanchism involves the mascots of sports teams, specifically football’s Washington Commanders and baseball’s Cleveland Guardians. The guy regarded as too scummy by NFL owners when he tried to buy into the league now wants those teams to return to their old names, the Redskins and the Indians, demonstrating what good judgment those NFL owners showed.
Back in the day most people accepted such team names without a second thought. Some people even said they honored the native fighters who resisted the genocide of their people. To put that in second-thought perspective, imagine if, after all the Gazans are killed or relocated to reservations, an Israeli football team chose to call itself the Fedayeen.
Trump, keep in mind, was raised in an era when natives were stock characters in a good deal of popular entertainment, a tradition dating back to the touring Wild West shows of the late 1800s. As the civil rights era dawned, more people noticed what a raw deal the natives had gotten, but they still exploited their entertainment value.
Marvin Rainwater, a country singer who wore a beaded headband and claimed Cherokee ancestry, had several hits in the late ’50s, including “Half-Breed,” No. 16 on the country charts in 1959. It was written by John D. Loudermilk, best known for writing “Tobacco Road,” covered by scores of artists. Loudermilk, too, claimed Cherokee ancestry; Elizabeth Warren wasn’t the only one whose family lore included a tall tale.
“Half-Breed” was actually Loudermilk’s second pass at the subject. Rainwater’s prior single, “The Pale Faced Indian,” went nowhere, maybe because its narrator expresses pride instead of shame.
Loudermilk, who also had a less successful singing career, later reworked the song, retitled it “Indian Reservation” and recorded it for his 1966 LP “A Bizarre Collection of the Most Unusual Songs.” It wasn’t released as a single.
The Raiders weren’t the first to have a hit with the tune. English pop singer Don Fardon had a No. 3 UK hit with it in 1968 that reached No. 20 in the U.S. Two years later the Raiders, whose commercial peak was years behind them by then, managed to take it to No. 1.
Throughout the ’70s Jamaican dub artists repurposed the song to address their own exploitation. This single by Funky Brown was released in 1972; Lee “Scratch” Perry also recorded it later in the decade.
