The opening tracks on each side of Broken Treaties by Silverbird – “Custer’s Last Stand” and the title song, “Broken Treaties” – deal effectively (and far less provocatively than Buffy Sainte-Marie did on It’s My Way!) with the basics regarding Native Americans; besides the themes that are obvious from the song titles, the songs talk about the slaughter of the buffalo herds and the current poverty among Native Americans. The mood of these two songs is appropriately somber, though the majority of the songs on Broken Treaties are upbeat.
While the other tracks on the Broken Treaties album by Silverbird do not directly address Native American issues, there is some social commentary, notably on “Poor Boy”. The final song on the album, “Violet” was singled out for praise by the piece on the album on the www.weapon-shaped.com website. My own favorites on the album are “Broken Treaties”, “Friends”, “At the Party” and “Sonny”.
(August 2013)
