Grant‐Lee Phillips - Susanna Little Lyrics

Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Gone ?fore I ever arrived

Questions that stream through my own Creek blood

The odyssey of your life


A motherless child , you were torn from your home

By decree of the county affairs

Good Christians, they gave you a lily-white dress

And shorn back that Indian hair


Told ya study your Bible, be silent and still

And take to the ways of the whites

Nothin? they offered could break down your will

For you ran for the gates one night


Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Gone ?fore I ever arrived

Questions that stream through my own Creek blood

Stories that keep you alive


Your daddy , Joe Little, had woes of his own

Drink was much stronger than greed

But some in the city felt native red hands

Were no place to let rest a deed


Oklahoma was rich with the stench of black oil

And the men who came there to drill

In the sun baked clay of Indian lands

There, in the desolate fields


Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Gone ?fore I ever arrived

Questions that stream through my own creek blood

Songs that?a keep you alive


Mysterious crimes, oh they swept through the county

Waving the finger of blame

Eyes turned to Joe Little

A couple too many acres of land to his name


No one would have heard the lone shot in the night

They never posted his bail

Big Joey Little, never walked out

Of Sheriff Stanton?s jail


Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Gone ?fore I ever arrived

Questions that stream through my own Creek blood

The odyssey of your life


For all of the lives you had lived this far

No part of you could have known

The evil hearts of the men who would fetch ya

One night by the side of the road


The moon, it grew dark and the frost would form

Before ya finally were found

Chained to a log in a torn white dress

Shakin? wild eyed on the ground


Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Gone ?fore I ever arrived

Questions that stream through my own creek blood

Such were the trials of your life...


Yet in the years to come, you took a man

Raised five of your own

And for a spell it was as almost as though

The light of justice had shown


The hand that had written this part but for you

And made it all plenty hard

Gave you a gusher, a well spring of oil

There in your own back yard


So pile them kids in the plush back seat

Ridin? shotgun in the Packard to town

With your man, Tom Fisher, one hand on the wheel

The other on your knee now


Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Gone ?fore I ever arrived

Questions that stream through my own Creek blood

The odyssey of your life


Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Sussana Little

Sussana Little