Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 08:41 PM

Whether outsiders helped or hindered is a debatable point.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 08:02 PM

SC and Rog-

Point well made!

But it has been a long hard struggle, and some of us were there.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 07:58 PM

However, 'Here's to the State of George Bush'.............

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 07:56 PM

I agree. Many of Phil's songs are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them, but this one clearly is not.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 07:52 PM

Charley, I see no reason for anyone to sing that song today in any context except as an example of social commentary of the period. So someone from Mississippi (such as me) being offended by it being sung, with or without prefacing, in any other context would be perfectly understandable.

SC

Subject: RE: Lyr Correction: Goodman Schwerner & Chaney
From: Rog Peek
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 01:45 PM

The lyric posted on DT has Goodwin instead of Goodman.
Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 01:15 PM

khandu I a going to assume you were being sarcastic. Phil Ochs was many things, but rarely subtle.

leeneia, Phil wrote this song shortly after a tour of Mississippi where he and a number of others including Pete Seeger, were playing benefit concerts. Shortly after he arrived in the state, news broke of the discovery of the bodies of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, and clearly the climate in Mississippi at the time posed no small risk to those singers who had gone there to participate. No, he had not lived in Mississippi, but he had seen first hand the effects of racial discrimination and hatred and was determined to do his bit in condemning an administration which was both racist and unjust.

"Good for him!" I say.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 11:25 AM

Q-

That is a relief to learn.

The civil rights movement in Mississippi was a dangerous uphill struggle, and Phil Ochs was paying tribute to that struggle. He certainly was not composing a song to assuage anyone in Mississippi at the time but to make Mississippi an example of what should not be. In the process he probably hurt the feelings of many good people in Mississippi who were postively concerned about civil rights for Blacks. That is regrettable but fully understandable to anyone who has a sense of history.

If one were singing that song today, I would expect the singer to make some prefacing remarks. If someone from Mississippi were still offended, I would wonder why but not for long.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 11:10 AM

Certainly not applicable to the Mississippi of today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 10:49 AM

Phil Ochs:

"Born in El Paso, Texas in 1940, Phil Ochs' family moved around frequently. He was raised in Far Rockaway, New York, then Perrysburg in upstate New York, where he first studied music — clarinet[2] — and then his family moved to Columbus, Ohio. He grew up in a non-political and non-religious Jewish middle-class family."


Obviously not somebody qualified to write about the hell and the beauty of life in Mississippi.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Here's to the State of Mississippi (O
From: GUEST,nicker yea
Date: 23 Aug 07 - 10:01 AM

in the late '60's phil used this song against Richard Nixon, substituting 'Nixon' with 'Mississippi'. he was a great story teller and true folk singer.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: State of Mississippi (Ochs)
From: GUEST,the matt
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 03:58 PM

you can't be fookin serious? Talking about how mississippi still sucks in man ways. Hope you are sarcastic a lot!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: State of Mississippi
From: GUEST,khandu
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 10:34 PM

I never could understand what Ochs was trying to say! I think he was a bit too subtle.

khandu

Subject: Lyr Add: HERE'S TO THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI (Ochs)
From: GUEST,Sol Northrup
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 07:35 AM

HERE'S TO THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI
Phil Ochs [1963]

Here's to the state of Mississippi
For underneath her borders, the devil draws no line.
If you drag her muddy rivers, nameless bodies you will find.
Oh, the fat trees of her forest have hid a thousand crimes,
And the calendar is lying when it reads the present time.
Here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of!

And here's to the people of Mississippi
Who say the folks up north, they just don't understand;
And they tremble in the shadows at the thunder of the Klan.
All the sweating of their souls can't wash the blood from off their hands,
For they smile and shrug their shoulders at the murder of a man.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

Here's to the schools of Mississippi,
Where they're teaching all the children that they don't have to care.
All of rudiments of hatred are present everywhere.
Where every single classroom is a factory of despair,
And there's nobody learning such a foreign word as fair.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

Here's to the cops of Mississippi.
They're chewing their tobacco as they lock the prison door,
And their bellies bounce inside them as they knock you to the floor.
No, they don't like taking prisoners in their private little war,
And behind their broken badges, there are murderers and more.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

And, here's to the judges of Mississippi,
Who wear the robe of honor as they crawl into the court.
They're guarding all the bastions with their phony legal fort.
Oh, justice is a stranger when the prisoners report.
When the black man stands accused, the trial is always short.
Here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

And here's to the government of Mississippi.
In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down,
And criminals are posing as the mayors of the towns,
And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sounds,
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

And here's to the laws of Mississippi.
Congressmen will gather in a circus of delay
While the Constitution's drowning in an ocean of decay.
Unwed mothers should be sterilized, I've even heard them say.
Yes, corruption can be classic in the Mississippi way.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

And here's to the churches of Mississippi,
Where the cross once made of silver, now is caked with rust,
And the Sunday morning sermons pander to their lust.
The fallen face of Jesus lies choking in the dust,
And heaven only knows in which God they can trust.
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of.
Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.