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Here's to the state of Mississippi (Phil Ochs)
Here's to the state of Mississippi,
For Underheath her borders, the devil draws no lines,
If you drag her muddy river, nameless bodies you will find.
Whoa the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes,
The calender is lyin' when it reads the present time.
Whoa 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 people of Mississippi
Who say the folks up north, they just don't understand
And they tremble in their shadows at the thunder of the Klan
The sweating of their souls can't wash the blood from off their hands
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
And every single classroom is a factory of despair
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
Their bellies bounce inside them as they knock you to the floor
No they don't like taking prisoners in their private little war
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
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 government of Mississippi
In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down
And criminals are posing as the mayors of the towns
They're hoping that no one sees the sights and 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 is 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 is choking in the dust
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
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Comments about this Video
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Actually, MS is probably safer to visit for a New Yorker than New York is for a Mississippian to visit.
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same here
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mississippi still sucks, but it's nothing like this anymore. one thing i can still agree with is the part about the schools.
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Wow...Mississippi isn't anything like that. Infact most of the south isn't even like that. The one thing that was pretty close though was the bureaucracy part, our senators suck, but that can be said for every state.
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er... it was in fact exactly like this when he wrote the song.
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but it isnt anything like that now
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When did I say it was?
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Look I am from VA but I must come to the defense of the state of Mississippi. Look all the bad racism that happened in Mississippi and other states (including the North, racism happend in the North too) was bad. I didn't think it was right and it was a bad part of history. However dont come on here and say "hey Mississippi and Southners are all a bunch of racist who hate black people." Is there still racism, yes. But there are decent Southners who get along with blacks and other minorites fine.
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Also it is kinda obvious that this guy is stereotyping the South in general. WAIT THOUGH! It is wrong when racial profiing occurs, which is actually used to prevent crime, but when stereotyping MS (and the South for the most part), it becomes ok. Conflicting ideas maybe? THE HYPOCRISY, and racial profiling isnt wrong. If there was a situation where a black man was found hung from a tree, it wouldn't make sense to go question black people? The killer for that crime would most likely be white.
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you didnt...i was stating a fact
also that first message was really being aimed towards everyone who is hating a state for its past, no state had it good starting off, and them being predjudice now is basically just keeping hate alive
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bu the way whos actually downsizing my comments?
seriously whats wrong with yall?
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He's not stereotyping the South, he's expressing historical facts about the endemic racism and corruption that was present in Mississippi during the fight for civil rights. You can read it as an attack on the south, but that would be ignoring the historical context of the song entirely; and that's ridiculous.
The song is political and comes from a particular political context - and that context was the racism and segregation of the 1960s in Mississippi. To ignore that is to ignore the song.
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I am not ignoing historical facts or the song. If I were, I would have not said in other my other comment on the video that racism that happened in MS and other states in America was bad. However, if it wasn't sterotyping, why not talk about all the racism that happened in American at that time. I know a guy from Jersey and he said that racism in cities like Boston and other Northern cities was horrible to. Why single out one Southern State, out of the rest of America who also had racial issues?
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Yea I dont think these guys know you are talking about the present day South. Watch this debate I am having with hemggoblin.
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This song was recorded in the sixties and he was and he was singing about a particular event in that took place called the "Freedom Summer Murders." I am quite sure that he would have agreed with you that Racism is a problem all over, and was worse in the days the song was first recorded. He later remade the song as "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon."
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dude i just cant believe people will preach about how mississippi sucks and everyone should live in shame of it
yet will also talk about how were the predjudice ones...
look what happened in the happened
it cant be changed people, if it could, it would be, but it cant
to damn an entire state because of its past is just assonine
and its hypocritical
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Does anyone realize this song was written Forty years ago.
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Thank you that's what I've been saying.
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hey all check out my videos and channel see what u thinks if it rocks or if it dinks
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Where ever there are people prejudice has it's ugly head. What about the past treatment of Asians in California, the sweatshops of New York working poor immigrant children, the West has a history of terrible treatment of Native Americans. (All involved in killing maiming at some point) We probably have less racism here than N.Y. It serves someone's political agenda to keep this myth going. Me. I love Mississippi. Problems are where people are, but not all people are prejudiced in any state.
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^^^ racism apologist found here
I bet you're all for state's rights... to own slaves!
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I see your point but your forgetting something important here- the time period in which this song was written was when Mississippi and many of the other southern states were dealing with alot of lingering racism and corruption especially in the wake of the civil rights movement. I think Phil Ochs would have agreed that people can be prejudiced in any state, many of his sings are protest songs about less specific topics.
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Do you know what was going on in Mississippi when Phil wrote this song? "Boston and other Northern cities" had their issues, but there is NO comparison to the shit that was going on down there. Phil really, really detested Mississippi and all it represented.
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"You weren't no leader,
You were more like a bleeder
Who was trying to cry for us all."
Harry Chapin "The Parade's Still Passing By". song for Phil
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the things you mentioned in other regions happened in the 19th century. Mississippi steal deals with many of these issues, even though the lynchings have stopped. Or put another way, in the north a racist is something despicable, in Mississippi its tolerated.
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