A powerful meditation on cultural appropriation and white guilt wrapped in indigenous imagery. The song builds through vivid descriptions of pre-colonial America before delivering a devastating twist - the narrator reveals he's actually a white man in Denver who has romanticized Native American history. This confession transforms the song from cultural reverence into a critique of performative identity and the commodification of others' trauma. The coffee/ash metaphor becomes a symbol of guilt's bitter taste.

"I Remember" 

The coffee tastes like ash this morning
But I drink it anyway
Like my grandfather drank
From streams that ran clear
Before they learned our names
Were inconvenient

I remember when buffalo moved like black thunder
Across grass that had never heard
The word property

I keep drinking coffee that tastes like smoke
From fires that warmed the councils
Where decisions mattered
But now I'm counting the cost
Of remembering
When forgetting would be
The final victory they don't deserve

They came with metal pots first
Shiny things that caught morning light
Like promises
We should have known
Anything that reflects that much
Is trying to hide something

My grandmother's hands knew every stitch
Every bead placement on winter robes
That kept us from the kind of cold
That lives in bones now

I keep drinking coffee that tastes like smoke
From fires that warmed the councils
Where decisions mattered
But now I'm counting the cost
Of remembering
When forgetting would be
The final victory they don't deserve

Three AM and the weight of knowing
How streams sounded before they carried
Industrial runoff and broken treaties downstream
I sit on this quarter-acre
They call preserved culture
And remember when the world was wide

I keep drinking coffee that tastes like smoke
From fires that warmed the councils
Where decisions mattered
But now I'm counting the cost
Of remembering
When forgetting would be
The final victory they don't deserve

But wait
I just realized something
Sitting here in my kitchen
In downtown Denver
Drinking fair-trade coffee
From my favorite mug
I'm not Native American
I'm just a white guy
Who read too many books
And fell in love
With someone else's tragedy
The coffee still tastes like ash though
Guilt has its own flavor

I Remember

Poet • Performer • Composer • Lyricist

I Remember

S F H music