F* the System Friday: Open the Door

Open the Door I’m all_______ Up

Being on the road with Floyd Red Crow Westerman was always an adventure. We were doing a gig in New Town, North Dakota, performing at a rodeo. Floyd and Carla, (Floyd’s personal assistant) picked me up at the airport in Bismark and we made the drive to Newtown.   

We did our gig (two songs) at the rodeo early in the evening. Then, we set up a little impromptu gig at a local Indian bar, The Buffalo Nickel. It was a Saturday night and the bar was a real loins’ den. Jackie Bird sat in on drums for a few songs. We played one long set, but it quickly became too crowded and people were getting over enthusiastic. We had to stop before midnight, though we weren’t ready to turn in. So, Floyd and I left the bar and went and jammed at a friend’s house. Jamming afterwards with Floyd was always fun. He would sing all kinds of songs: Cash, Kristofferson and Dylan were his favorite to cover.

Finally, I hit the sack at the Four Bears Casino and Hotel. Floyd’s room was right across the hall from mine.  About an hour and a half later something wakes me up. I look through the peep hole and it’s some drunken cowboy pounding on the door next to Floyd’s. “Frankie, open the Door. I’m all f’d up…Frankie, open the door. I’m all F’d up.” He repeats it twenty times, using every voice inflection imaginable, from angry and loud, “FRANKIE! OPEN THE DOOR! I’M ALL F’D UP!” to whimpering very sympathetically, “Frankie…open the door…I’m all f’d up.” That’s all he says. He staggers his pounding and rants. Just when you think he’s gone, or fallen back to sleep…BAM BAM BAM, “Frankie, open the door. I’m all f’d up!” The cowboy was so drunk he would pass out between episodes.

Floyd and I meet for coffee the next morning and the first thing we say to each other in unison is, ‘Frankie, open the door. I’m all f’d up”.  I told Floyd I was going to write a song about it.

A few weeks later, back in LA, Floyd calls John Trudell on his cell phone. “John, come on down to the studio. We got a protest song going on.” We did the demo at a Hen House Studio in Venice, CA. John Densmore of the Doors set up. I’d done a little work there before with him. Floyd eventually recorded his tribute to Jonny Cash at the studio.  

Floyd and I had many talks about protest music. He liked the way I would lead people gently to a brutal truth. He would just kick them in the shins. Floyd and Bob Dylan would always say, “America won’t get right, until we get right with the American Indian.”  Here are a few brutal dates in American history I used in the song.

Listen to Open the Door by clicking here

Open the Door

Open the door I’m all _______ up

1519 Cortez/Montezuma 1531 Inca Empire

1540 Coronado 1565 St. Augustine 1607 Jamestown

1619 Slave Ships 1620 Plymouth Rock

1622 Powhatan Indians vs. settlers 1637 Pequot Wars

1675 King Phillip 1680 Pueblo revolt

1754 French and Indian Wars 1756 Indian Wars

1763 Pontiac’s Rebellion 1775 Revolutionary War

1779 Scorched Earth 1780 Dragging Canoe

1787 Northwest Ordinance 1794 Fallen Timbers

1803 Louisiana Purchase 1811 Tippecanoe

1812 War of 1812 1819 Florida Land Transfer

1824 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) 1830 Indian Removal Act

1831 Trail of Tears1832 Black Hawk 1832 Bad Axe 1837 Small Pox

1837 Chippewa Treaty 1848  California atrocities began

1851 Fort Laramie

1852 Eat Grass 1854 Lake Superior 1861 Civil War

1862 Sioux Uprising/ 38 Sioux 1864 Sand Creek Massacre

1866 Fetterman’s Massacre 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn/ Custer

1887 Dawes Allotment Act 1889 Nelson Act 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre

1890 Census Bureau declared the frontier ended

1902 more timber 1918/1975 Wounded Knee 1620 Plymouth Rock

1637 Pequot Connecticut settlers 1619 Slave ships 1518 Cortez 1519 Montezuma

1511 help Cuba conquer 1540 Coronado Seven cities 1531 Inca Empire

1492 first voyage 1493 second 1498 third 1502 fourth

1565 St. Augustine 1607 Jamestown 1638 first rez