“Green Grass and High Tides” by The Outlaws

"Green Grass and High Tides" closes Outlaws, the Southern rock band's 1975 debut on Arista, and it takes its sweet time: two extended guitar solos stretch it to nearly 10 minutes, with Paul A. Rothchild producing. Founding member Hughie Thomasson wrote it at a beach cookout in St. Augustine, Florida, where nobody had remembered to bring a guitar; standing by the ocean in the breeze, he felt the words keep coming. It imagines the dead rock stars he loved, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison among them, coming back to play a show for him alone.

It was never a single, but album rock radio played it endlessly anyway, and it became the band's usual show closer; the 1978 live album Bring It Back Alive stretches it past 20 minutes.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.