Broken Arrow (song)
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"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 applause and the opening of "Mr. Soul" (from the same 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 quivered,
- 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.
