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Phil Ochs - In The Heat Of The Summer (LP Version)

In The Heat Of The Summer
Phil Ochs
03:08
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Song lyrics

In the heat of the summer
When the pavements were burning,
The soul of a city was ravaged in the night
After the city sun was sinking.

Now no one knows how it started,
Why the windows were shattered,
But deep in the dark, someone set the spark
And then it no longer mattered.

Down the street they were rumbling,
All the tempers were raging,
Oh, where, oh, where are the white silvertongues,
Who forgot to listen to the warnings?

On and on come the angry,
No longer following reason,
And all the stores were the target now
Where just the other day they were buying.

Drunk with the memory of the ghetto,
Drunk with the lure of the looting,
And the memory of the uniforms shoving with their sticks,
Asking, "Are you looking for trouble?"

"No, no, no!" moaned the mayor,
"It's not the way of the order,
Oh, stay in your homes, please, leave us alone,
We'll be glad to talk in the morning."

"For shame, for shame!" wrote the papers
"Why the hurry to your hunger?
Now the rubble's resting on your broken streets
So you see what your rage has unraveled."

Baricades sadly were rising,
Bricks were heavily flying,
And the loudspeaker drowned like a whispering sound
When compared to the angered emotions.

And when the fury was over,
And the shame was replacing the anger,
So wrong, so wrong, but we've been down to long,
And we had to make somebody listen
In the heat of the summer...

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