WE ARE THE NATIVES

CATEGORY

Primary Emotion

Justice

Also Fits

History • Identity • Loss • Courage • Resilience • Truth • Hope

There are some songs you hear, and there are some songs you carry with you.

This is one of the ones you carry.

It speaks to Indigenous people whose families still live with the consequences of decisions made generations ago. It also speaks to anyone whose history has been ignored, rewritten, or forgotten. Maybe your story isn’t the same, but you know what it’s feels like to lose something that should never have been taken. Maybe it was your family, your language, your culture, your home, or simply the chance to grow up without carrying someone else’s mistakes.

This song also speaks to people who weren’t there when these events happened but who genuinely want to understand them. History isn’t about assigning guilt to people who never committed the wrongs. It’s about refusing to pretend those wrongs never happened.

The more we understand each other’s stories, the less likely we are to repeat them.

That is where this song begins.

Not with blame.

With understanding.

WHAT THIS SONG IS ABOUT

“We Are the Natives” is about a people who never stopped existing.

For generations, Indigenous communities across Canada endured displacement, broken promises, residential schools, the destruction of traditional ways of life, and countless attempts to erase cultures that had existed for thousands of years.

Many people know pieces of that story.

Far fewer understand how those pieces continue to affect families today.

This song isn’t trying to reopen old wounds simply for the sake of anger. It’s asking something much simpler.

Before we judge one another

Before we argue politics

Before we defend governments or churches

Can we first listen?

Can we allow ourselves to hear what another people experienced?

Because every nation has chapters it would rather forget.

Ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear.

THE STORY BEHIND

WE ARE THE NATIVES

I’ve always believed that songs don’t have to come only from personal experience.

Sometimes they come from paying attention.

Sometimes they come from reading history.

Sometimes they come from listening instead of talking.

This song came from exactly that.

Over the years I’ve read about residential schools, treaty promises, the disappearance of the buffalo, the loss of language, and the many ways Indigenous families were separated from one another. Like many Canadians, I also watched the discoveries of unmarked graves begin making headlines in 2021. For many people, that was the first time they truly stopped and looked at a part of Canadian history they had never been taught in school.

For Indigenous families, however, it wasn’t news.

It was confirmation.

Confirmation of stories grandparents had carried for decades.

Confirmation of memories that many people had refused to believe.

When I started writing this song, I kept asking myself one question.

What would I want someone to hear if they had never heard this story before?

Not statistics.

Not politics.

Not speeches.

Just humanity.

Because once you remove the politics, you’re left with parents who lost children.

Children who never came home.

Communities that watched entire generations grow up disconnected from their own language, traditions, and identity.

Those aren’t political issues.

Those are human ones.

One thing I wanted to be careful about was not pretending this was my story.

It isn’t.

I’m not Indigenous.

I can’t speak for Indigenous people, and I would never claim to.

What I can do is acknowledge that this history happened and that it deserves to be remembered honestly.

Music has always had the ability to carry stories further than history books sometimes can.

A song can make someone stop for four or five minutes and feel something they may never have considered before.

If that happens, then the song has already done something worthwhile.

The title itself is simple.

“We Are the Natives.”

Not “We Were.”

Not “We Used to Be.”

The present tense matters.

Because Indigenous people aren’t part of history.

They’re part of today.

They’re raising families.

Running businesses.

Creating art.

Serving communities.

Building futures.

Their cultures continue to live because people refused to let them disappear.

That resilience is something worth respecting.

WHY THIS SONG FITS MOITA

MOITA has never been about writing songs that stay inside one lane.

Some songs come from my own life.

Some come from imagination.

Some ask philosophical questions.

Others look at people whose stories deserve to be heard.

This song belongs in the MOITA catalogue because it asks listeners to look beyond themselves.

If all we ever write about is our own experiences, we miss the opportunity to learn from someone else’s.

Throughout this catalogue you’ll find songs about pain, hope, family, identity, courage, faith, injustice, forgiveness, and rebuilding.

Those aren’t separate subjects.

They’re all connected.

This song simply tells one chapter of that larger human story.

It reminds us that history isn’t finished.

Its consequences continue to shape lives today.

Understanding that doesn’t divide us.

It gives us the opportunity to become better neighbours, better citizens, and better human beings.

That is exactly the kind of conversation I hope MOITA continues to encourage.

LYRICS 

READ THIS FIRST

Before you read these lyrics, don’t think about politics.

Don’t think about governments.

Don’t think about headlines.

Think about families.

Think about children.

Think about grandparents telling stories that nobody believed.

Think about what it would feel like if someone tried to convince the world that your culture didn’t matter.

Then read these words.

Not to agree with everything.

Not to disagree with everything.

Simply to listen.

Sometimes listening is where understanding begins.

LYRICS

WE ARE THE NATIVES 

We are the natives — let us live

We never did you wrong

Torn from our families by force

Where did we belong?

Hiding in fear, drowning in tears

No justice, no choice

Promises shattered like glass

And they silenced our voice

Buffalo fallen under rifles

The food we lived upon

Whiskey poured into broken souls

While the white man’s guns move on

We are the natives — we are a culture

This was our land before your name

You broke our world to build your empire

But you will never erase our flame

Blood on the soil, hands full of shame

You tried to bury who we are

Let us live — we love this land

Our spirit stands where you left scars

Our cries were buried under progress

Your cities rose in stone

You built your future on our graves

Then called this theft your own

Years have split our families

Like knives inside our lives

We drink to numb the history

But the memory survives

You came and took it all away

Rewriting sacred ground

But even through the centuries

Our heartbeat makes a sound

We are the natives — we are a culture

This was our land before your claim

You tried to crush our sacred fire

But you can’t extinguish flame

Blood in the rivers, truth in the wind

The earth still knows our name

Let us live — we love this land

And we are not ashamed

It took unmarked graves to wake the world

To break the silent seal

Children stolen in the night

Tell me how that feels

Where are our children?

Where have they gone?

Bones in the ground since 2021

Proof of what was done

You took our sons

You took their names

You buried truth beneath the shame

White lies wrapped in holy words

But heaven saw the crime

You can’t erase what history holds

Not this time

We are the natives — we are a culture

This was our land before your throne

You tried to erase our blood and language

But this earth still calls us home

Bloodshed written into sand

But we still rise and stand

Let us live — we love this land

And we’re still here

We’re still here

We’re still here.

WHAT I LIVED, WHAT I FELT, AND WHY THESE WORDS EXIST

“We are the natives — let us live”

Those six words became the foundation of the entire song.

They aren’t asking for revenge.

They aren’t asking to take something away from someone else.

They’re asking for something every human being deserves.

The right to exist.

The right to belong.

The right to be respected.

Sometimes the strongest words are the simplest ones.

“Where did we belong?”

That question reaches far beyond Indigenous history.

Anyone who has ever been pushed aside, ignored, excluded, or made to feel like they didn’t belong understands that question.

Belonging is one of the deepest human needs we have.

Take that away from someone, and you change generations.

“Promises shattered like glass”

History is filled with promises.

Treaties.

Agreements.

Words spoken with confidence.

But promises only matter when they’re honoured.

Broken promises don’t disappear.

They become memories that families pass from one generation to the next.

“Buffalo fallen under rifles”

This isn’t simply about an animal.

It’s about survival.

When a people depend on something for food, clothing, shelter, and culture, destroying that resource changes everything.

History isn’t always rewritten with words.

Sometimes it’s rewritten through starvation.

“We are a culture”

I intentionally chose culture instead of race.

Cultures carry language, music, traditions, humour, ceremonies, food, stories, and ways of understanding the world.

You can take land.

You can outlaw language.

You can ban ceremonies.

But culture has a remarkable way of surviving inside people.

“You built your future on our graves”

History often celebrates progress.

Railways.

Cities.

Industry.

Growth.

Those achievements are real.

But every nation should also have the courage to ask what was sacrificed to build them.

Acknowledging that doesn’t erase accomplishment.

It completes the story.

“We drink to numb the history”

Pain doesn’t always disappear.

Sometimes it changes form.

Trauma often echoes through generations in ways people don’t immediately recognize.

Healing starts when those echoes are finally acknowledged instead of ignored.

“It took unmarked graves to wake the world”

That line came directly from watching public awareness shift after the discoveries that began receiving widespread attention in 2021.

Many Canadians were shocked.

Many Indigenous families were not.

That contrast stayed with me.

“Where are our children?”

I think this may be the most painful question in the song.

Because no parent should ever have to ask it.

No grandparent should spend a lifetime wondering.

Questions like that don’t belong to one culture.

They belong to humanity.

“White lies wrapped in holy words”

This isn’t written to condemn faith.

Faith has brought comfort, hope, forgiveness, and strength to countless people.

The line challenges hypocrisy.

History shows us that people sometimes misuse religion to justify actions that contradict the very values they claim to believe.

The problem isn’t faith.

The problem is what people choose to do with it.

“This earth still calls us home.”

That ending mattered.

The song couldn’t end in despair.

It had to end with survival.

Because despite everything Indigenous communities have endured, they remain.

Their cultures remain.

Their languages continue to be revived.

Their traditions continue to be practiced.

Children continue to learn.

Communities continue to heal.

The final message isn’t that history won.

It’s that people survived history.

And survival itself is one of the greatest forms of strength.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Every country has chapters that make people proud.

Every country also has chapters that are difficult to read.

Ignoring either one gives us an incomplete picture.

This song isn’t asking anyone to carry guilt for the past.

It’s asking us to carry responsibility for the future.

Understanding history doesn’t weaken a nation.

It strengthens it.

Because a country becomes more united when its people are willing to hear every story—not just the comfortable ones.

If this song encourages even one person to learn more, to ask better questions, or simply to listen before judging, then it has already accomplished something meaningful.

That’s what I hope people carry with them long after the music ends.

CLOSING COMMENTS

Every once in a while, a song comes along that isn’t written to entertain.

It’s written to remember.

“We Are the Natives” is one of those songs.

It comes from observation, curiosity, respect, and a belief that listening to another person’s story is one of the most important things we can do.

History belongs to all of us.

So does the responsibility to learn from it.

Every MOITA song begins somewhere in real life.

Sometimes that life is mine.

Sometimes it’s someone else’s.

But every one of them starts with a real question worth asking.

This one asks us to remember the people who were here long before us, to acknowledge what happened, and to recognize that their story is still being written today.

MOITA
WHERE EVERY SONG TELLS A STORY