The Story Behind the Song – Jericho 

Jericho, a song about PTSD affecting a modern veteran soldier, was written by Evan Murphy the lead singer and guitarist of Boston-based quintet Mile Twelve, with assistance from the mandolin player in the band David Benedict. Musical arrangement was by all band members.

Physicians have known of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for thousands of years but, rather confusingly, using different names; ‘shell shock’ during WWI, ‘war neurosis’ during WWII and ‘combat stress reaction’ in the Vietnam War. It was during the 1980s that the term PTSD was introduced.

Brian Matthew Jordan’s book Marching Home has the subtitle “Union Veterans and the Unending Civil War.” He points out that the battles didn’t end with the declaration at Appomattox; it was the beginning of the struggles to deal with the horrific experiences that blighted lives for the rest of a veteran’s days. Soldiers from the North or South, and others involved in later conflicts, have suffered long before PTSD was used to identify the issues.

Probably the most illustrious account of a warrior’s struggles is Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. The greatest poet of ancient Greece tells the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, during his voyage home after the fall of Troy. What should have been an uneventful and short journey took 10 years and led Odysseus to suffer the terrors of the Cyclops, Circe, Scylla, and Charybdis; these experiences are from about 1200 BCE.

However, the first documented case of psychological distress was reported in 1900 BCE, by an Egyptian physician who described a hysterical reaction to trauma.

Murphy explains what was involved in the writing of Mile Twelve’s song about what are all-too-commonplace experiences when combatants return to civilian life …..

“I grew up in the Catholic Church, and I grew up during the start of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These were the two main things that shaped the song Jericho. I was 11 years old on 9/11 and, like everyone else who lived through it, it left a lasting impact. It was one of the first events that really erased a sense of perfect stability. I knew people who went to serve in the wars, but I was largely able to ignore the reality of it and go on with my life.

The closest contact I had was with my guitar instructor after college, Jason Sagebiel, a marine who had retired medically after being injured in Iraq, and transitioned back to civilian life through therapy and a rigorous health regimen. But I had heard the stories of the veterans who struggled deeply with their transition and could not shake the horror of the suicide statistics among them.

I read a lot about PTSD before writing the song, and though I would never claim to be an expert in it, I took certain symptoms that stuck with me such as severe claustrophobia (‘these days I sleep under an open sky, cause I can’t seem to sleep in my bed’), and dreams of past trauma (‘at night I still fly back to Jericho). Setting it in Jericho, as opposed to Iraq or Afghanistan, is the Catholic influence at work. I still have all these images rattling around in my head of angel wings and trumpet blasts. I got the idea of the soldier in the song dreaming of the battle of Jericho, where God was calling him back to bury his friends, save the children that he could not save in waking life, and restore order to pure chaos.”

Jericho

The songwriter and artist credits are both for Mile Twelve, BMI.

Verse 1

These days I sleep under an open sky
Cause I can’t seem to sleep in my bed
Back before we split up my wife told me it’s just in your head
A civilian’s life used to make sense to me
Then I shipped out and served my two tours
I retired last year, tried to come back to life as before

Chorus

But at night I still fly back to Jericho
Where we brought their walls tumbling down
And bury my friends who have fallen and never been found
And God’s children I’ll save from their enemies
With a horn that he gave me to blow
Finish my days in the only place I really know, Jericho

Verse 2

When it’s sunny I sit in the public park
When it’s raining I ride on the train
At this diner they serve me free coffee, they know me by name
And the guys from my unit come talk to me
About the jobs they’ve been trying to chase
And I tell them how after it’s dark I return to that place

Chorus

How at night I still fly back to Jericho
Where we brought their walls tumbling down
And bury my friends who have fallen and never been found
And God’s children I’ll save from their enemies
With a horn that he gave me to blow
Finish my days in the only place I really know, Jericho

Verse 3

A garden grows now where that city burned
Children play with old guns from the war
But the bullets are gone now they don’t even know what they’re for
And my family back home can sleep well at night
Knowing I’ll keep them safe everyday
Till I die and I’m laid to rest under the ruins we made

Chorus

Till at night I can fly back to Jericho
On two wings made of God’s own design
And bury my friends who have fallen and been left behind
And His children I’ll save from their enemies
With a horn that he gave me to blow
Finish my days in the only place I really know, Jericho

© All rights reserved. 

Jericho is one of the tracks on the latest album from Mile Twelve, City on A Hill (Delores the Taurus Records).

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About the Author

Richard Thompson

Richard F. Thompson is a long-standing free-lance writer specialising in bluegrass music topics. A two-time Editor of British Bluegrass News, he has been seriously interested in bluegrass music since about 1970. As well as contributing to that magazine, he has, in the past 30 plus years, had articles published by Country Music World, International Country Music News, Country Music People, Bluegrass Unlimited, MoonShiner (the Japanese bluegrass music journal) and Bluegrass Europe. He wrote the annotated series I'm On My Way Back To Old Kentucky, a daily memorial to Bill Monroe that culminated with an acknowledgement of what would have been his 100th birthday, on September 13, 2011.