(Inuktitut speaking)

The following song was written through the eyes of my grandfather
My father
And me
I got to tell her

I was raised in this world as a product of my own
And the twenty kids I’ve got
Only thirteen I know
I’ve been raised to live in hell
But it’s this land that I call home
That I want it be the end of all the things that I’ve known
I try to speak the teach but it just comes out as preach
Because it never really reached all the kids in the streets
Now the proof is in the pudding and the proof’s in the pie
Fact is what they teachin’ they ain’t missing the lie
Through my eyes they ain’t nothing but money making schemes
Sell the world to a kid who’s got nothing but a dream
I’ve watched my kid’s kids growing up on drinks and drugs
Walking up and down these streets like little hoodlum thugs
And the other half, they be reading and such
Not even understanding what they reading and stuff
I call your bluff
Twenty years for walk through that door
Claiming that you’re bringing peace
And all you ever brought was war
Now it’s tragedies and epidemics never seen before
Except these tragedies of war have been turned up on themselves
Shotgun shells, their silence, it gets left in the streets
Twenty years ago we couldn’t find a damn thing to eat
Now you’re telling me to pay a cent for a treat
Now the government has closed your eyes the problems you see
You could bite the hand that feeds you
But you can’t be set free

Open your eyes
Stay together
Cause someday we will have it all together
We’ll celebrate
When life is good
We made it
The struggle

(Inuktitut speaking)

I woke up held down no tears no sound
Everywhere I look is broken families all around
And getting preached by my mother while she’s preached by your father
And at the end of days they’re done, left with all the honour
You wanna hear the truth, the one they hide from youth
I was fucked from the start, broken shattered, million parts
But the fact that I am here, is the fact I stayed in tact
I put my body to the books and now I’m looking where it’s at
Given land, given money, given things they want from me
Given lies, given greens, spreading hate and evil scenes
Simple logic, we dropped the bar, now we lost it
The object is getting lost in all the toxins
Sitting here, getting blamed for all the hard shit
Man, you’re brother’s cold and heartless
Government officials, better watch how you talk
My son is going to come and clean you all on your conscience (conscience, conscience, conscience)

Open your eyes
Stay together
Cause someday we will have it all together
We’ll celebrate
When life is good
We made it (made it)
The struggle (struggle)

Open your eyes (eyes)
Stay together (stay together)
Cause someday we will have it all together
We’ll celebrate (celebrate)
When life is good (when life is good)
We made it (made it)
The struggle (the struggle)

I raised without a clue of who or how to be
Being Inuk and I’m not, it’s a damn tragedy
Because the language that I speak is the one that’s set in stone, yup
The one I speak at home is getting lost and overthrown
My uncles in my own family, they be looking inside of me
They’ll being seeing that I am Inuk but they see that I’m the key
One of the last remnants of a culture deep in tact
We’ve got soldiers, we’ve got hunters, we can kill them

We got lost in the world where there was no rising sun
Where the laws bringing promise to a place where there was none
Sick of all the talks about the land in which I own
When half the people broke, the other half don’t have a home
Someone makes the rules of law, the other makes the rules of life on land
For the very same fact, you will never understand

Where I’ve been, where I’m going, what I’m seeing, what I’m showing
How my dreams seem to be what my hands will end up holding
Yet, suicide has gone and taken all the friends I had
I said, suicide has gone and taken all the friends I had (ah)
Suicide has gone and taken all the friends I had (ah)
And you’re standing there like you freakin’ ain’t saying nothing (yeah)

Open your eyes (yeah)
Stay together (stay together)
Cause someday we will have it all together (someday we’ll have it)
We’ll celebrate (celebrate)
When life is good (when life is good)
We made it (made it)
Through the struggle (the struggle)

Open your eyes (eyes)
Stay together (stay together)
We made it through the struggle (the struggle)