Broken Arrow (song)

Song infobox
Name = Broken Arrow


Type = Song
Artist = Buffalo Springfield
Album = Buffalo Springfield Again
Released = November 18, 1967
track_no = 10
Recorded = August-September, 1967
Genre = Rock
Length = 6:13
Writer = Neil Young
Label = Atco
Producer = Richie Furay
Jack Nitzsche
Stephen Stills
Neil Young
prev = "Rock & Roll Woman
prev_no = 9
next =
next_no = "Broken Arrow" is a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young and recorded by Buffalo Springfield on their 1967 album "Buffalo Springfield Again". It was recorded in August and September 1967 at Columbia Recording Studios and Sunset Sound Recorders. It incorporates musical ideas from "Down Down Down," a demo Young recorded with Buffalo Springfield (and now available on the box set).

"Broken Arrow" was confessional folk rock. It consists of three verses interspersed with snippets of sound from carnival music featuring organ, drum and clarinet. The song begins with audience applause (taken not from a Buffalo Springfield show, as some expect, but rather from a concert by the Beatles) and the opening of "Mr. Soul" (which opens the album) recorded live in the studio, and ends with the sound of a beating heart.

Each of the three verses uses surreal imagery to deal with emotions (emptiness of fame, teenage angst, hopelessness), and contains self-references to Buffalo Springfield and Young. They all end with the same lines:

:"Did you see them, did you see them?":"Did you see them in the river?":"They were there to wave to you.":"Could you tell that the empty quiver,":"Brown skinned Indian on the banks":"That were crowded and narrow,":"Held a broken arrow?"

The Blackfoot Indians would use a broken arrow to signal that they would cease fighting.

External links

* [http://human-highway.com/lyrics/lyrics-01.html#007 lyrics]
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:myeb975gkrat Allmusic Review]