First Line: 
I think of Andy in the cold wet clay

Artist & Tune

Composed by: 
Frances Taylor
Pete Seeger

Reference

Genre: 
composed folk US
Topic: 
Civil Rights Movement

About the Song

The lyrics were written by Frances Taylor. She died in Poughkeepsie at age 70 in 1979 (not far from the Seegers' home in Beacon NY). 

The song is about the murder of 3 civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman & Michael Shwerner in Neshoba County, Mississippi, on June 21, 1964. They had been attempting to register African Americans to vote during "Mississippi Freedom Summer". 

In spite of a conspiracy to suppress evidence, 8 men were convicted in a 1967 including the local KKK imperial wizard. The men were sentenced to sentences ranging from 3-10 years. None served more than 6 years in prison.

The local sheriff and a minister were released after hung juries in spite of testimony that they took part. The minister was convicted in a new trial in 2005 and received long prison sentences. 

Pete Seeger spent Mississippi Freedom Summer working in Mississippi in support of the project. He was there when Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were killed. Seeger was leading a musical program later that summer when someone passed him a note that the bodies of the three freedom workers had been discovered in an earthen dam. After telling those gathered the news, Seeger sang the song "Healing River". 

Frances Taylor, a film critic for the NY Times wrote the lyrics of this song as a poem in 1965. She sent the poem to Pete Seeger whom she knew asking him to put the poem to music, which he did a year later. The song with Seeger's music was published in Broadside magazine in 1966. Seeger included the song on his 1967 Columbia album "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy & Other Love Songs". 

The lyrics of original poem, Seeger's song, and Harry Belafonte's cover of it vary some. (see mudcat link below)

Lyrics:
I think of Andy in the cold wet clay
Those three are on my mind
With his comrades down beside him
On that brutal day
Those three are on my mind
C ↓ - - / F G C - ://
There lays young James in his mortal pain
Those three are on my mind
So I ask the killers can you see those three again
Those three are on my mind

I see dark eyed Michael with his dark-eyed bride
Those three are on my mind
And three proud mothers weeping side by side
Those three are on my mind

But I'm grieving yet & for some the sky is bright
I cannot give up hoping for a morning light
So I ask the killers do you sleep at night?
Those three are on my mind (2x)
F - C -  (2x)   F G C Am (2x)  F G C -
I see tin roof shanties where my brothers live
Those three are on my mind
And the little burnt out churches where they sing we forgive
Those three are on my mind

I know of Tom Paine's Water Tree, I know the price of liberty
Now I ask the question that is deep inside of me
Did they also burn the courthouse when they killed those three?
Those three are on my mind (3x)
F - C - (2x)   F G C Am (3x)  F G C -
w: Frances Taylor 1965  m: Pete Seeger 1966
© 1966 Fall River Music, Inc. All rights reserved.

To read more about this song, check out a series of four very informative blogs posted on Sing Out's website by Ken Bigger in 2012, providing a lot of the musical and historical context and significance of the song:

 

Wikipedia Entry
Mudcat