[1] "Boots" imagines the repetitive thoughts of a British Army infantryman marching in South Africa during the Second Boer War.
[2] The 1915 spoken-word recording of the poem by American actor Taylor Holmes has been used for its psychological effect in U.S. military SERE schools.
[3] The poem was set to music for low male voice and orchestra by "P. J. McCall", and recorded in 1929 by Australian bass-baritone Peter Dawson.
That setting was soon recorded by other singers, but seems largely to have fallen out of fashion, possibly because of World War II.
American-born British poet T. S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse.