“We’re all gonna shine one day / we’ll stand our ground and never stray / rising tall with love and pride / while we live in dreams”
Celebrated Canadian musician, author, and visual artist Tom Wilson (Tehoháhake) today releases his luminous new video for “We Live In Dreams,” co-written with award-winning Anishinaabe journalist, storyteller, and filmmaker Tanya Talaga. Produced by Tom Wilson and mixed by Gary Furniss at The Stonehouse, the song is a stirring and deeply felt anthem of Indigenous resilience, cultural pride, and the unshakeable power of community, and arrives as one of the most meaningful recordings of Wilson’s remarkable career.
“We Live In Dreams” serves as the emotional centrepiece of the powerful new documentary Ni-Naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising, directed by Shane Belcourt and produced by Talaga’s production company Makwa Creative. The film resurrects and restores the buried history of a pivotal 1974 land-back occupation led by Louis Cameron, an Indian Residential School Survivor and founder of the Ojibway Warriors Society, an act of extraordinary courage that drew members of the American Indian Movement and ultimately brought the Native Caravan to Parliament Hill. Belcourt, who also directed and shot the song’s music video, brings the same unflinching visual storytelling to the single’s release.
The song was born from the creative partnership between two of Canada’s most essential Indigenous voices. Wilson and Talaga, whose groundbreaking books Seven Fallen Feathers and All Our Relations and Canadian Screen Award-winning docuseries The Knowing have reshaped conversations around Indigenous truth-telling, channelled the documentary’s spirit directly into the music. “We are here to give everything we’ve got to honour the warrior hearts who have dodged bullets, cut through razor wire and thrown their lives on the line to free the spirit of our people,” Wilson has said. “We are here to create art to fight the hate and the violence towards our people. We are here to tell the truth. We are here to stand for love and we are here to win with love.”
Listen on Spotify here:
A multi-JUNO Award-winning artist known for his work with Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Lee Harvey Osmond, and Junkhouse, as well as his bestselling memoir Beautiful Scars, Tom Wilson has spent decades building a body of work that honours his Mohawk heritage and insists on the truth. “We Live In Dreams” marks a new chapter in that legacy, a song written with intention, recorded with love, and offered to the world as both art and advocacy.
Ni-Naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising premieres on CBC’s Channel 1 on Sunday, May 24, 2026 at 9pm ET, with both versions available on CBC Gem beginning June 1, 2026. “We Live In Dreams” is available now on all streaming platforms. The single is released with funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
ABOUT TOM WILSON (Tehoháhake): Tom Wilson is a multi-JUNO Award-winning musician, bestselling author, and acclaimed visual artist whose work reflects his Mohawk heritage and lifelong dedication to truth-telling through art, music, and story. He is known for his work with Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Lee Harvey Osmond, and Junkhouse, and as the author of the bestselling memoir Beautiful Scars.
ABOUT TANYA TALAGA: Tanya Talaga is an Anishinaabe journalist, author, filmmaker, and storyteller and the founder of Makwa Creative. She is best known for Seven Fallen Feathers, All Our Relations, and the Canadian Screen Award-winning docuseries The Knowing.