The song has also been covered by Johnny Cash, Everclear, Emily Loizeau, Crash Vegas, Gillian Welch, Trampled By Turtles, and Ian McNabb.
[3][9] However, by the end of the song the lyrics have jumped to modern times, with a fictional meeting in the Astrodome between the narrator, Pocahontas (actual name, Matoaka) and indigenous rights activist actor Marlon Brando.
[2] "Pocahontas" begins with an image that evokes "a cold breeze whistling by":[10] Aurora borealis The icy sky at night Paddles cut the water In a long and hurried flight It then describes the massacre.
[9] The time period fast forwards, moving from the settlers massacring the buffalo to a bank on the corner in a single line, and then to the present day where the narrator sits in his room with an indigenous rug and a "pipe to share".
[8][11] Finally, in what critic Jim Sullivan calls "a biting surrealistic twist", in the last verse the narrator sits with Matoaka and Marlon Brando, discussing Hollywood and major modern technological milestones from the mid-1900s such as the Astrodome and the first television.
"[8] Music critic Johnny Rogan called the song "one of Young's most accomplished acoustic tracks from the period and a perfect example of his ability to mix pathos and comedy.
[10] Bob Bonn of the Beaver County Times compared it unfavorably to Young's earlier song about European conquest of the Indians, "Cortez the Killer", in that the lyrics do not match the "brilliant, melancholy and haunting" quality of the earlier song, nor is Young's guitar playing as evocative.
[13] But music critic Robert Christgau counters that due to the "offhand complexity of the lyrics...'Pocahantas' makes 'Cortez the Killer' seem like a tract.
[21] Canadian folk-rock group Crash Vegas contributed a cover to Borrowed Tunes, a tribute to Neil Young.