He's a ruthless opportunist 

      And he motivates by greed 

      He's just the way his father was 

      And that we sure don't need 

      So they all cried out destroy him 

      For he wants to see us drowned 

      They never understood him 

      So they put him in the ground. 



      Now some had stood for hours 

      And some sat on the grass 

      Listening to their radios 

      For where the train had passed 

      And a crowd will get impatient 

      As the clock hands turn around 

      They never understood him 

      So they put him in the ground. 



      They handed out some candles 

      To the somber weary crowd 

      And told us not to light them 

      Till our eyes beheld the shroud 

      Not even at that moment 

      Could there be tranquility 

      I could feel them push and argue 

      Hey, sit down, I cannot see 

      They never understood him 

      So they put him in the ground. 



      When the fathers closed their bibles 

      And the family left the site 

      The ropes and walls and hedges 

      Kind of faded in the night 

      Replaced by all the people 

      Who made a prayerful sound 

      They never understood him 

      So they put him in the ground. 



      Some people say the eighth of June 

      But the morning of the ninth 

      The workmen gently lowered him 

      By the beam of three work lights 

      Easy, take it easy 

      Set him down real slow 

      He'd been on some rougher trips 

      But he couldn't tell them so 

      They never understood him 

      So they put him in the ground. 



      Now no man has the answers 

      And he was just a man 

      And yet I can't help feelin' 

      That he knew a better plan 

      A shorter road to justice 

      On the trip that's freedom bound 

      But they never understood him 

      So they put him in the ground.