The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18322   Message #181352
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
19-Feb-00 - 06:38 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: White Boots Marching in a Yellow Lan
Yes - the late and much misswed Peter Bellamy

And his settings have been done as astage production, The Widows Uniform which is well worth seeing if you can, or getting a record of it.

But that verse in Phil Ochs song:
"Train them well the men who will be fighting by your side,
And never turn your back if the battle turns the tide,
For the colors of a civil war are louder than commands
When you're white boots marching in a yellow land."

That could be Kipling, writing about India, or Roman Britain. (Except that the implied rejection of the war by Phil Ochs wouldn't have been there with Kipling. What would have been there is a cynicism about the whole affair - his soldiers just see it as a job to be done.)