Wild Water
Water protectors in Ashfield, MA and Kaladera, India.
Words and music by Sarah Pirtle © 2021 Discovery Center Music, BMI
Lyrics
1. On a farm in Ashfield, morning glory vines
watch over a wild spring where the sparkling water shines.
Those neighbors have decided, water’s there for all who will
bring jugs and jars to their watering trough. Catch the endless spill.
Chorus:
Wild water, come up from the ground.
Wild water, the whole world round.
Water’s singing when all is done, “I belong to everyone.”
While the jugs are filling, I send my heart to find
a woman half way around the world who comes into my mind.
Once the bajra filled the field, and the fenugreek and wheat,
In Kaladera, Rajasthan, land is bare and bleak.
Chorus
3. She put a bucket down the well, but the water was not there.
The water had dropped nineteen feet all in just one year.
And she knows the reason the water disappears.
The Coca Cola pirates are water racketeers.
4. In Kaladera, Rajasthan, she’s standing with a sign.
A row of trucks from a bottling plant pass her in a line.
A thousand crates every day take water cross the sea.
She is holding up a sign: “This drought’s from burglary.”
Chorus
5. When I stand at this wild spring, she is in my heart.
The same water is in our veins. We can’t be torn apart.
Water falls into a trough. A jug is in my hand.
In India she holds her sign. This water understands.
Chorus
6. When I lift a water jug, I am by her side.
We are drops of water in a growing wave worldwide.
Water that’s inside me calls out to her there.
While the jugs are filling, I send out a prayer.
Chorus
7. There’s places where it’s hoarded or where it can’t be found,
it’s stolen or where pipelines threaten sacred ground.
Standing Rock protectors keep the drumming strong,
Water Keepers round the world join with the water’s song.
Chorus
About This Song
The “Wild Water” song is dedicated to Will and Donna Elwell, the Ashfield neighbors who share ground fed wild water and who have created a place of community care. People come from miles around with jugs to be able to partake of this rare healthy water. In the spring, pansies in flower boxes deck the sides. This photo taken by Will shows what it looked like a day in August after he placed a basket of zinnia blossoms from their farm over the surface.
The carved pine trough you see is the fourth trough constructed. Forty years ago when the Elwells bought this farm an iron horse trough still stood along the road where a hundred years ago horses drank. After the utility company cut down a huge pine tree, Will used tools to carve this massive channel. Alongside there is a bench and a lending library of books. There’s also a covered area where a very special journal is kept out of the rain that goes back to 2015 when Kinder Morgan tried to put a fracked gas pipeline through Ashfield. To stop it, Will created a timber replica of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin. He placed the cabin exactly on a spot where the pipeline was scheduled to cross and the location became a rallying place. This action was one of the key protests that led to stopping the pipeline. Will is interviewed and quotes Thoreau in this article:
https://www.recorder.com/News/Local/Post-and-beam-picket-line-681568
When I come to get water, I thank the water and sing. Sometimes it’s a song created right then and sometimes a First Nations water song if there is permission to sing it. This youtube carries an Algonquin water song for women to sing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC2FHciQ0sU
The article that also inspired this song is from the India Water Portal website, “People of a semi-arid Rajasthan village battle Coca Cola.” I learned the information that, “In addition to creating water shortage, Coca Cola is also polluting the groundwater. Farming is at a tipping point because of falling water tables.”
Another resource describes: “This Penobscot (nepi) water song was written by Gabriel Paul at the request of his aunt after hearing Doreen Day's Ojibwe Nibi (Water) Song and her encouragement for other tribes to create their own song. Gabe is from the Crow and Eel Clan and has been learning our language from a very young age.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC2FHciQ0sU
https://www.penobscotnation.org/departments/natural-resources/water-resources/water-song