What I love most about rivers is
You can't step in the same river twice
The water's always changing, always flowing (flowing)
But people, I guess, can't live like that
We all must pay a price
To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing (ever knowing)

What's around the river bend
(Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?)
Waiting just around the river bend
I look once more just around the river bend
Beyond the shore (beyond the shore) where the gulls fly free
Don't know what for (what for) what I dream the day might send
Just around the river bend for me, coming for me

I feel it there beyond those trees
Or right behind these waterfalls
Can I ignore that sound of distant drumming?

You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places
I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see
If the savage one is me
How can there be so much that you don't know
You don't know

You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn Moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest (forest)
Come taste the Sun sweet berries of the Earth (berries)
Come roll in all the riches all around you (you)
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high does the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know

And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn Moon
For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains
We need to paint with all the colors of the wind
(Just around the riverbend)

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind