songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.
In 1997, she founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project, an educational curriculum devoted to better understanding Native Americans. She has won recognition and many awards and honours for both her music and her work in education and social activism.
Buffy Sainte-Marie was born in 1941 on the Piapot Plains Cree First Nation Reserve in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was later adopted, growing up in Massachusetts, with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, earning degrees in teaching and Oriental philosophy and graduating in the top ten of her class. She went on to earn a Ph.D in Fine Art from the University of Massachusetts.
In 1964, on a return trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a powwow she was welcomed and (in a Cree Nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief Piapot, Emile Piapot and his wife, who added to Sainte-Marie's cultural value of, and place in, native culture.
In 1968, she married surfing teacher Dewain Bugbee of Hawaii; they divorced in 1971. She married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975; they have a son, Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild. That union also ended in divorce. She married her co-writer for "Up Where We Belong," Jack Nitzsche, on March 19, 1982. He died from a heart attack on August 25, 2000. As of 2007, she lives in Hawaii.
Although not a Bahá'í herself, she became an active friend of the Bahá'í Faith by the mid-1970s when she is said to have appeared in the 1973 Third National Bahá'í Youth Conference at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and has continued to appear at concerts, conferences and conventions of that religion since then. In 1992, she appeared in the musical event prelude to the Bahá'í World Congress, a double concert "Live Unity: The Sound of the World" in 1992 with video broadcast and documentary. In the video documentary of the event Sainte-Marie is seen on the Dini Petty Show explaining the Bahá'í teaching of progressive revelation. She also appears in the 1985 video "Mona With The Children" by Douglas John Cameron. However, while she supports a universal sense of religion, she does not subscribe to any particular religion.
Sainte-Marie claimed in a 2008 interview at the National Museum of the American Indian that she had been blacklisted by American radio stations and that she, along with Native Americans and other native people in the Red Power movements, were put out of business in the 1970s.
In a 1999 interview at Diné College with a staff writer with the Indian Country Today, Sainte-Marie said "I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that President Lyndon B. Johnson had been writing letters on White House stationery praising radio stations for suppressing my music" and "In the 1970s, not only was the protest movement put out of business, but the Native American movement was attacked."
As a result of this blacklisting led by (among others) Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Nashville disc jockey Ralph Emery (following the release of I'm Gonna Be a Country Girl Again), Sainte-Marie said "I was put out of business in the United States".
The Angel
Buffy Sainte-Marie Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And leave your dying desert to the rains
Give up your treasured wounds
Let go the tempting memory of the pain
Give up the vows you've taken
And you will live, and you will learn to fly away
And you will fly
And you will live my love
And see the stars regain your starless night
And you will find your sun
And learn the magic meaning of it's light
All souls will be yours to cherish
Rising, falling, in their earthly flight
And you will fly
And I would love my love
And he would seek a refuge in my eyes
But no resource of love
Could keep him from the fire where loving dies
And I would reach out my hand as he was
Falling, falling to his home on high
And he would fly
Give up your treasured wounds
Let go the tempting memory of the pain
Give up the vows you've taken
And you will live
And you will learn to fly again
And you will fly
The lyrics of "The Angel" by Buffy Sainte-Marie heavily address themes of love, loss, and healing. In the opening lines of the song, Sainte-Marie discusses moving on from pain and letting go of past hurts. She encourages her love interest to leave behind their "dying desert," or their unhappy past, to find healing in the rain. The second verse also focuses on finding revelation - in this case, through the stars and the sun. Sainte-Marie tells her lover that they will find hope in these celestial bodies, and will come to understand the "magic meaning" of their light.
However, the third verse takes a sharp turn. Sainte-Marie discusses losing her love, and how she cannot save him from the "fire where loving dies." She mentions reaching out her hand as he falls, but ultimately cannot intervene in his death. Despite this, the refrain remains positive: by giving up old wounds and letting go of past vows, the singer will find healing and the ability to "learn to fly again."
"The Angel" touches on several spiritual themes, such as apocalypse and rebirth, and was released during a time in which hippies were promoting the concept of a "new age" spirituality. The song can also be interpreted as a conversation between the singer and God or an angel. Additionally, Buffy Sainte-Marie has cited her desire to write a love song from both the perspectives of the man and the woman as inspiration for the song.
Line by Line Meaning
Come now, and now my love
Join me now, my beloved
And leave your dying desert to the rains
Abandon the lifeless wasteland that's been hurting you, let the rain bring it back to life
Give up your treasured wounds
Release yourself from the pain you hold onto
Let go the tempting memory of the pain
Forget the pain that lures you and hold you back
Give up the vows you've taken
Abandon the promises you have made
And you will live, and you will learn to fly away
You'll start living again and learn how to soar high
And you will fly
And you will fly
And you will live my love
You'll live again my love
And see the stars regain your starless night
You'd be able to admire and appreciate life's beauty again
And you will find your sun
You'll find your happiness
And learn the magic meaning of it's light
You'll learn what makes you happy
All souls will be yours to cherish
You'll cherish everyone around you
Rising, falling, in their earthly flight
As we go through the ups and downs of life
And I would love my love
I would love him so much
And he would seek a refuge in my eyes
He would look for comfort in my eyes
But no resource of love
But love won't be enough
Could keep him from the fire where loving dies
Can't keep him from getting hurt where love is burnt out
And I would reach out my hand as he was
I would try to help him
Falling, falling to his home on high
Falling into the afterlife
And he would fly
He would fly
Give up your treasured wounds
Release yourself from the pain you hold onto
Let go the tempting memory of the pain
Forget the pain that lures you and hold you back
Give up the vows you've taken
Abandon the promises you have made
And you will live
You'll start living again
And you will learn to fly again
You'll learn how to soar high again
And you will fly
And you will fly
Contributed by Mateo H. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Chuck
on Moonshot
I don’t know if this interpretation is by AI or an idiot, but it isn’t close to the mark. “Off into outerspace” isn’t an awestruck nod to space travel, but sneering at those whose minds are basically in outer space. “We wish you bon voyage” is sardonic. Welcoming back is sincere, hoping they come back to earth and realize what is here in these simple places, these cultures rooted in balance with nature and those around us. Cultures buried by the might and white-washing of American society. The anthropologist disappeared from that American society and into native culture, for which his wife is distraught viewing him as lost. But he spoke the truth and spoke it boldly and wisely as if from the heavens themselves.