Trip-hop stalwarts Massive Attack have unleashed a new single, “Boots on the Ground,” featuring Tom Waits.
Sounding as gruff as ever but with more bite, Waits sings over an ominous production — “We trim your hedges/ We fight your wars/ Wait in the trenches/ And we fuck ’til we’re sore” — before repeating “boots on the ground” in a song that’s filled with social commentary.
The partnership between the two acts has been years in the making, per Tom Waits. “One day many years ago I accepted an invitation from Massive Attack to collaborate,” Waits explained in a press release. “Way back then, we sent them ‘Boots on the Ground.’ Their long release delay never worried me. Today, as in all of mankind’s yesterdays, guarantees this song will never go out of style. Man’s fiasco folly is a feast for the flies. Hence, the B-side of Massive Attack’s upcoming 12-inch ‘The Fly’ features my appreciation for the winged nuisance.”
All profits from the “Boots on the Ground” / “They Fly” vinyl will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union and the US Immigrant Defense Project.
The single is accompanied by a film created by Massive Attack, working with photo artist thefinaleye. Described as “a high-intensity and deeply moving montage,” the film portrays the “momentous American epoch yet to be named.”
“It’s a career honour to collaborate with an artist of the magnitude, originality and integrity of Tom, but this track is arriving in an atmosphere of chaos,” Massive Attack said in a statement. “Across the western hemisphere, state authoritarianism and the militarisation of police forces are fusing again with neo-fascist politics. Seen within the American emergency, at home and overseas, this track contains pulses of callous impulse and abandoned mind.”
While the song is deeply relevant, don’t expect to see it on Spotify anytime soon. Massive Attack announced they were pulling their music from the streaming service in 2025, citing CEO Daniel Ek’s leadership of the AI military technology company Helsing.
Waits was last featured on a song in 2018, singing for guitarist Marc Ribot’s version of the Italian anti-fascist folksong “Bella Ciao.” Prior to that, Waits’ most recent original work came in 2011, with his album Bad As Me.
Tom Waits and his wife, songwriter Kathleen Brennan, are the subject of a tribute album due out May 29th. Waits will also be featured as a performer on 20th Century Paddy – The Songs of Shane MacGowan, a tribute to the late Pogues frontman, which is set to be released in November.
“Boots on the Ground” Lyrics:
Big legs dangle from a helicopter hole
Big chug rhythm it’s gotta be now ho!
Brown, mean and young
Dumb and full of cum
What can you use a marine for
This is a fucking ass machine gun war
With your boots on the ground
Boots on the ground
Boots on the ground
Boots on the ground
We trim your hedges, we fight your wars
Wait in the trenches, and we fuck ‘til we’re sore
Boots on the ground
Boots on the ground
Born shiny bullets in an army of ants
Blow that horn, we sleep in our pants
Big titties, big titties
Well we holler and we burn down cities
Boots on the ground
Boots on the ground
Shootin up the town
Stayin in the hole until Jimmy Hoffa is found
With my boots on the ground
Well something goes tink when the cartridge is spent
Where do you think all your cartilage went
Boots on the ground
Boots on the ground
Now who the hell are these federal pricks?
Hiding in the senate like a bloated ass tick
Air conditioned fuckstick loafers
Sittin in a room full of army posters
A coal to a diamond, a vote into law
They Campaign up all the blood they can draw
Mold your world, a soldier’s just clay
How much does every soldier weigh?
Cut you off at the ankles and they throw that away
Boots on the ground
It’s cold and hot, as Satan’s .hoof
Spinning on the world I’m hiding on a roof
I kill a brown man I never ass knew
Choked on spit and then he turned blue
He spattered black blood, he rolled fin out
He died right here I got the pearl from his snout
A puff of gray smoke from the tongue of a cloud
He rotted in the sand and all that they found was his
boots on the ground, boots on the ground, boots on the ground
All that they found was his boots on the ground, boots on the ground
