The Trio's first recordings for Colpix were similar to the conventional folk songs that were gaining popularity then as an alternative to the early rock-and-roll genre. It was songs from their first Kapp Records release — "Mighty Day" (about the 1900
Galveston,
Texas hurricane); "
Rum By Gum" (about the
Temperance/
Prohibition movement); and "Lizzie Borden" (an irreverent satire countering the common heroizing of
the accused axe murderer) — which began to make the Trio distinct. Their next Kapp album contained "The John Birch Society". "The Ides of Texas" from their final Kapp release took aim at financier
Billie Sol Estes. Their live performance album
At The Bitter End on Kapp Records also included the song "
Moscow Nights" with its original Russian lyrics, despite the Cold War era of strained relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The trio's Mercury albums continued its trend to record topical and controversial songs. "Twelve Days" imagined a group of former
Nazis singing new lyrics to the old
Christmas carol; a similar theme would be explored later in the "I Was Not A Nazi
Polka". "Barry's Boys" ("You too can join the crew/
Tippecanoe and Nixon, too"), a song from Julius Monk's "Dime a Dozen", which portrayed a view of the followers of conservative
Republican 1964 Presidential candidate
Barry Goldwater. "A Dying Business" went after funeral costs and customs, while "
The Draft Dodger Rag" (by
Phil Ochs: "Sarge, I'm only eighteen/I got a ruptured spleen/And I always carry a purse") explored the beginnings of resistance to the
Vietnam War. "What Kind of Life Is That" pondered on celebrity fame (specifically, that of
Elizabeth Taylor). "Alma Mater" ("We'll miss the classrooms/Where we learned/And effigies we burned") took on segregationist policies at the
University of Mississippi and was followed later by "Your Friendly, Liberal, Neighborhood
Ku-Klux-Klan". While the Mitchell Trio became best known for such songs, they also produced a solid body of work which showed that folk music could be "polished" yet remain close to its roots. They recorded shanties numbers like "Whup Jamboree" and "The Golden Vanity", as well as folk dance numbers like "Hello Susan Brown". Their rendition of the southern traditional prison work song
“Ain’t No More Cane On This Brazos” combines lyrics from several different established versions from over the years. They could do rousing
gospel music numbers like "You Can Tell The World", "I Feel So Good About It (Sin Bound Train)", and "One Day When I Was Lost (Easter Morn)". They were the first folk group to record many of the songs of
Tom Paxton, such as "
The Marvelous Toy", "What Did You Learn In School Today?", and "We Didn't Know". They also sang the work of
Woody Guthrie ("The Great Historical Bum (Bragging Song)"),
Shel Silverstein ("The Hip Song (It Does Not Pay To Be Hip)", "Yowzah", "Three Legged Man"), and
Bob Dylan ("
Blowin' in the Wind" (they were in fact the first to release it, but Peter, Paul and Mary's subsequent rendition became the best-known cover version), "With God On Our Side", "
Mr. Tambourine Man"). The Mitchell Trio also did the first major recording of John Denver's later hit "For Baby (For Bobbi)" and also handled his "
Leaving on a Jet Plane". Their final album offered a soft, harmonized version of
The Beatles' "
She Loves You". Kobluk's solo vocal on Ewan MacColl's "
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" pre-dated the
Roberta Flack major hit version by several years. ==Influence and legacy==