Song
"Kaw-Liga" is a song about a wooden Indian, Kaw-Liga, who falls in love with an "Indian maid over in the antique store" but does not tell her so, being, as the lyrics say:
-
- Too stubborn to ever show a sign,
- Because his heart was made of knotty pine.
The Indian maid waits for Kaw-Liga to signal his affection for her, but he either refuses or is physically/emotionally unable (interpretations vary) to talk, ever the stoical Native American of the popular stereotype. Because of his stubbornness, Kaw-Liga's love continues to be unrequited, with Hank Williams, the narrator/singer of the song lamenting,
-
- Poor ol Kaw-liga, he never got a kiss,
- Poor ol Kaw-liga, he don't know what he missed,
- Is it any wonder that his face is red?
- Kaw-liga, that poor ol' wooden head.
The song ends with the Indian maid being bought and taken away from the antique store by a buyer, leaving Kaw-Liga alone,
-
- As lonely as can be,
- And wishes he was still an ol' pine tree.
Read more about this topic: Kaw-Liga (song)
Famous quotes containing the word song:
“Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.”
—Unknown. Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song (l. 11–12)
“The city sleeps and the country sleeps,
The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,
The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;
And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,
And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue buses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)