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".
Waves
Buffy Sainte-Marie Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
One with skin as deep as autumn burning leaves.
One with eyes of ocean color,
And ocean deep as ocean eyes can be.
Look for him at sunrise,
When the sunrise rainbows puddle every scarlet bay.
And if he’s there,
Surfing crystal mountains,
One with hands of sinew,
Hands as wired to perfection as a jeweler man’s.
One with days of childhood in his days,
And childhood in his ways of being a man.
Look for him at noonday,
When the noonday poppies sweetly nod their sweet perfumes.
And if he’s there,
Don’t wake him up just pass on by,
And wish him perfect dreams.
One with flowers in his eyes,
And flowers in his dreams of flowers running wild.
One with stars in every smile,
Who smiles at every star and every waterfall.
Look for him at sunset,
When the sunset waves are breaking at infinity.
And if he’s there,
Surfing crystal mountains,
Say hello for me.
And if he’s there,
A silhouette against the green,
Tell him hello for me.
The lyrics to Buffy Sainte-Marie's song "Waves" paint a vivid portrait of three different men, each with their unique characteristics and attributes. The first man is described as having "hair of golden" and "eyes of ocean color," while the second man has "hands of sinew" and "days of childhood in his days." The third man is depicted as having "flowers in his eyes" and "stars in every smile."
The song seems to be about the search for love in all its various forms. The singer is searching for these men, whom she presumably knows, and is asking the listener to say hello to them if they happen to cross paths. The imagery of surfing crystal mountains and sunset waves breaking at infinity adds to the dreamy and introspective tone of the song.
In a broader sense, the song could be interpreted as a meditation on the beauty and variety of human experience. Each man is unique and special in his own way, and the singer seems to be celebrating that fact. The song invites us to appreciate the people in our lives for who they are, with all their quirks and imperfections.
Line by Line Meaning
One with hair of golden,
A person with golden hair
One with skin as deep as autumn burning leaves.
A person with skin as deep and colorful as autumn leaves
One with eyes of ocean color,
A person with eyes as blue/green as the ocean
And ocean deep as ocean eyes can be.
Their eyes are deep and vast like the ocean
Look for him at sunrise,
Search for this person during sunrise
When the sunrise rainbows puddle every scarlet bay.
When rainbows are reflected on the surface of the ocean at sunrise
And if he’s there,
If this person is present
Surfing crystal mountains,
Riding imagined 'mountains' of water, or very large waves
Say hello for me.
Greet them on my behalf
One with hands of sinew,
A person with strong, muscular hands
Hands as wired to perfection as a jeweler man’s.
Their hands are as dextrous and skillful as those of a jeweler
One with days of childhood in his days,
A person who retains traits from their childhood
And childhood in his ways of being a man.
They have retained their childlike qualities while still being a grown man
Look for him at noonday,
Search for this person at noon
When the noonday poppies sweetly nod their sweet perfumes.
When poppies are in full bloom and sway in the wind releasing their sweet scent
And if he’s there,
If this person is present
Don’t wake him up just pass on by,
Don't disturb their sleep, just leave them be
And wish him perfect dreams.
Wish them wonderful dreams
One with flowers in his eyes,
A person who sees beauty in everything
And flowers in his dreams of flowers running wild.
Their dreams are filled with wild flowers
One with stars in every smile,
A person whose smile is as bright as the stars
Who smiles at every star and every waterfall.
Their happiness is not dependent on anything in particular, but they find joy in everything
Look for him at sunset,
Search for this person during sunset
When the sunset waves are breaking at infinity.
When the waves of the ocean seem to go on forever because of the sunset light
And if he’s there,
If this person is present
Surfing crystal mountains,
Riding large waves
Say hello for me.
Greet them on my behalf
And if he’s there,
If this person is present
A silhouette against the green,
Their figure standing against a green background
Tell him hello for me.
Say hello to them on my behalf
Contributed by Anthony J. 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.