Hear a Previously Unreleased Buffy SainteMarie Track from Her Blacklist Years
There's a good reason why folk icon Buffy Sainte-Marie might want to revisit the past on her new album, Power in the Blood out May 12, which features a mix of new songs and re-recorded material. Some of its tracks, like a previously unreleased version of "Not the Lovin' Kind," from her 1972 album Moonshot, never got the shot they deservedthanks what she describes as government suppression. "I wrote it in the mid-1970s, during what media has re-named the blacklist years,' when I could get no airplay no matter what I sang aboutI figured tastes had changed, singers-come, singers-go kinda thing," Sainte-Marie tells TIME about the new version of the song, premiering exclusively on TIME today. It wasn't until decades later that Sainte-Marie learned her outspoken views on the Vietnam War and Native American rights had made her the subject of campaigns by the Johnson and Nixon administrations to keep broadcasters from playing her and other artists' musiceven when the songs had nothing to do with the issues she spoke out about. "Not the Lovin' Kind" isn't a protest song, but the song's rockabilly feel and tale of a nasty breakup feel just as fiery. "It's a musician's kind of song, a real groove, lots of room for hot playing, not too fussy," Sainte-Marie says of the track. "And believe it or not, it also has only two chords. Musicians love it. As for the words, this song is the Bible of how to let go of a jerk. It's passionate for sure, but you can tell she's clear about saying, See ya!'"