It's hard to imagine that for me that September 11th attacks were half a lifetime ago for me -- back when I was 18 years old and a freshman in college. But so it was. A very different time, I remember hearing this song a lot driving back and forth to HVCC listening to WGNA Country 107.7 radio. In some ways, the song seems a bit dated, but then again so does most things from two decades. Regardless, it's a good song.
I was listening to Phil Ochs Pleasures of the Harbor ⚓ and the studio version of the Crucifixion is simply an amazing listening experience. 🎶
So he stands on the sea and shouts to the shore,
But the louder that he screams the longer he’s ignored
For the wine of oblivion is drunk to the dregs
And the merchants of the masses almost have to be begged
‘Till the giant is aware, someone’s pulling at his leg,
And someone is tapping at the door.
Then his message gathers meaning and it spreads accross the land
The rewarding of his pain is the following of the man
But ignorance is everywhere and people have their way
Success is an enemy to the losers of the day
In the shadows of the churches, who knows what they pray
For blood is the language of the band.
"Thirsty Boots" is a Civil Rights era folksong by American singer-songwriter Eric Andersen that first appeared on his 1966 album 'Bout Changes 'n' Things. According to the album's liner notes, the song "was written to a civil rights worker-friend. Having never gone down to Mississippi myself, I wrote the song about coming back."
The song, one of Andersen's best known, has been covered by artists such as Judy Collins, John Denver, Anne Murray, and The Kingston Trio. In various stage appearances, Collins has claimed that Andersen wrote the song's last verse on a matchbook cover while in her bathroom.[citation needed]. Eric Andersen tells this story himself in the documentary Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation[1] Bob Dylan also recorded this song for his album Self Portrait, but it did not make the final cut. However, it was released as a 7" vinyl single in April 2013 from Bob Dylan The Bootleg Series Vol. 10.
Andersen has stated in interviews that Phil Ochs encouraged him to finish the song, and later recordings of "Boots" were dedicated to the late folksinger.
God bless the grass that grows thru the crack. They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back. The concrete gets tired of what it has to do, It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru, And God bless the grass.