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Will the Salmon Come Home?

by Ian Carrick

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about

75% of the proceeds from this song will be donated to wildsalmon.org to support their ongoing efforts to advocate for the removal of the four lower Snake River Dams.

I wrote this song because I learned that historic wild Snake River Chinook runs of over 2 million have decreased to just 9 fish in 2021.

This song is my version of reparations. My settler ancestors made a treaty that indigenous people would have access to their traditional foodways. Salmon are their lifeblood. Removing the Snake River Dams has bipartisan support, is economically viable, and is our last resort after over a billion taxpayer dollars have been spent while salmon move closer and closer to extinction.

If you're moved by this, please give 2-5 minutes to the cause and contact your representatives using this resource the Nez Perce tribe maintains: www.salmonorcaproject.com I just used their form letter.

Thanks for listening,

Ian Carrick

*ps you can learn more in a 3 min read here: tinyurl.com/2p8ujh55

lyrics

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*lyrics*

Chinook runs used to fill the streams
Til you could walk across
Gutherie sang for Grand Coulee
But did not feel the loss

Today those streams run empty
Of the wild fish they love
Orca mamas hungry
Cannot feed their young

Will the salmon come home?
Against the odds, waters warm
Will the salmon come home?
When I'm old, dead and gone

Today, Bonneville has no songwriter
They do not have the cash
Moving fish with elevators
Hasn't brought them back

Taxpayers we've all payed
To keep these dams alive
For 50 years Nez Perce have prayed
Our brothers won't survive this

Will the salmon come home?
Against the odds, waters warm
Will the salmon come home?
When I'm old, dead and gone

I don't know if I can fit this story in a song
Celilo fed 10,000 years of people now it's gone
The fish came back a week after the Elwha dam came down
A billion dollar bandaid won't make a heart unbound

Call me a naive songwriter
Mired in the past
But when our cities flood with water
Which legacy will last?

Bureaucracy too full of fear
To address a mistake?
Or ancient rivers running clear?
How my young heart aches

Will the salmon come home?
Against the odds, waters warm
Will the salmon come home?
When I'm old, dead and gone

When I'm old, dead and gone
When I'm old, dead and gone

credits

released March 29, 2022

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Ian Carrick Bend, Oregon

Ian is a community-oriented songwriter, songleader and music teacher based in his hometown of Bend, OR.

Ian sings on the ancestral lands of the Paiute, Wasco and Warm Springs people and is open to learning what right relationship looks like.

As a light-skinned banjoist, Ian tithes monthly to the Black Banjo Reclamation Project ... more

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