South Carolina Green Grass & High Tides The Outlaws

South Carolina Album: Lady In Waiting (1976)
Green Grass & High Tides Album: Outlaws (1975)
by The Outlaws

Founding Outlaws member Henry Paul wrote South Carolina about the pain of separation from being on the road with the band. He says, "That is one of the weirdest songs that I've written. And that's just total separation. Just completely that and nothing more. And my wife was born, or grew up in South Carolina. And from a geographical standpoint, the name Carolina worked okay as a name, a proper noun."

South Carolina is not one that Paul is particularly proud of. Says Paul: "That probably really is one of the weaker songs I've written, but it's a very popular song. It's a really good song; not so much lyrically, but musically it really propels itself and it comes from a musical/spiritual place in me that is very real and very aggressive and upbeat. And so it was always a very popular song. But it didn't go too deep, it skimmed along the top, and when you get to that 'South Carolina, stars in her eyes, Blue Ridge Mountain home in the sky,' I don't know, it's just a collection of words that doesn't really mean much. In my mind I'm singing about my wife, but when I repeat that it almost sounds like a chamber of commerce ad for the state of South Carolina. It sounds like I want to get back to South Carolina, and maybe she represented that because she was there, I don't know. It's a loosely conceived subject that really didn't focus too good. But again, it had a really neat musical sort of backdrop and people just loved it live, so that was kind of part of that musical mosaic from that time period."

Henry Paul says this song is not about marijuana, but about rock and roll luminaires, and the title, he says, was taken from the 1966 "Best Of" collection by the Rolling Stones called High Tides and Green Grass. Says Paul, "From what I gather, there was an album out, the best of the Rolling Stones, called 'High Tides and Green Grass.' That was the name of the Rolling Stones' greatest hits - this is like 1966 - and I think it was a manifestation of that title turned in reverse, 'Green Grass and High Tides.' I know that much. And I know that it was a song written for rock and roll luminaires, from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix, and it had nothing to do with marijuana. But it had to do with, I think, a specific person's lyrical look at rock and roll legends. 'As kings and queens bow and play for you.' It's about Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. 'Castles of stone, soul and glory.' A lot of it is just sort of a collage of words that really don't have all that much to do with anything, they just fit and sounded right. But I have to say it's one of my favorite lyrics. My songwriting is more Steinbeck, really rooted in accuracy and reality; this is definitely Alice In Wonderland. It's the whole 'White Rabbit.' It's sort of like one of those magic lyrical moments that will forever be mysteriously unclearly conceived." (Check out our interview with Henry Paul. For more, go to www.blackhawkmusic.us.)

In most of the Outlaws albums' liner notes, Hughie Thomasson signed off with the line "green grass and high tides forever."

The song is the final encore of Solo Tour in the video game Rock Band. Because the game only has four tracks (guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals), the song's three guitar parts are combined into one track.