Phil Ochs was born on Dec. 19, 1940. If you have heard his voice,

[ConsAreLiars]

you know why many of us miss him. If not, you have been denied an important part of our history. He was a truth teller, and a caring person.

His words, his lyrics, are collected at http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/

A short bio is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Ochs

Amazon has some short samples from many of his albums. Click on an album and listen to the clips: http://www.amazon.com/Phil-Ochs/artist/B000APW990

And now Youtube has a few clips of some of his concerts. Start here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE

One example: The lyrics to "I Ain't Marching Anymore"

Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying
I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore


It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brother
And so many others
And I ain't marchin' anymore

For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore

(chorus)

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning
I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore

Now the labor leader's screamin' when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason,"
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more.

(edit out stray '.')

[manic expression]

1. Phil Ochs

I can't really find the right words, but his music is simply beautiful. I didn't know it was his birthday, thank you for posting this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE

[ConsAreLiars]

10. A Mike Malloy caller mentioned this anniversary on the show tonight..

Phil Ochs' music, his words and his voice and his message, touch the deepest and most human part of me. The tears well up, and the sense of what we have lost, what has been stolen from us as common human beings, becomes overwhelming.

[LittleClarkie]

2. I've got that on my iPod

Just as relevant now as it was then

[LittleClarkie]

6. Oops, actually it's this one:

Silent Soldiers on a silver screen
Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream
Unpaid actors of the mystery
The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free
And what's this got to do with me

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

Drums are drizzling on a grain of sand
Fading rhythms of a fading land
Prove your courage in the proud parade
Trust your leaders where mistakes are almost never made
And they're afraid that I'm afraid

I'm afraid the war is over
It's over, it's over

Angry artists painting angry signs
Use their vision just to blind the blind
Poisoned players of a grizzly game
One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame
Pardon me if I refrain

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is to young to die

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived
You only are what you believe

I believe the war is over
It's over, it's over

[ConsAreLiars]

16. There's a youtube video

of one of his performances of that song at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Vekho3xLE&mode=related&search=

[LittleClarkie]

17. Thanks

I'll watch it at home, where I've got speakers.

[zulchzulu]

3. Phil is definitely one of my heroes

He'd be an excellent person to have his story made into a film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Ochs

[Fridays Child]

4. One of my favorite Phil Ochs songs...

There But for Fortune

Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a pris'ner whose face has grown pale

And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I

Show me an alley, show me a train
Show me a hobo who sleeps out in the rain

And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I

Show me the whiskey stains on the floor
Show me a drunk as he stumbles out the door

And I'll show you a young man
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I

Show me a country where the bombs had to fall
Show me the ruins of buildings so tall

And I'll show you a young land
With many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
You or I

[seemslikeadream]

5. It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles.

It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life.

--Phil Ochs


Flower Lady

Millionaires and paupers walk the hungry streets
Rich and poor companions of the restless beat
Strangers in a foreign land
Strike a match with trembling hand
Learn too much to ever understand
But nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

Lover's quarrel, snarl away their happiness
Kissed crumble in a web of lonliness
It's written by the poison pen
Voices break before they bend
The door is slammed
It's over, once again
But nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

Poets agonize, they cannot find the words
And the stone stares at the sculptor asks "are you absurd?"
The painter paints his brushes back
Through the canvas runs a crack
Portrait of the pain never answers back
But nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

Soldiers, disillusioned, come home from the war
Sarcastic students tell them not to fight no more
And they argue through the night
Black is black and white is white
Walk away both knowing they are right
But nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

Smoke dreams of escaping souls are drifting by
Dull the pain of living as they slowly die
Smiles change into a sneer
washed away by whiskey tears
In the quicksand of their mind they disappear
Still nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

Feeble, aged, people almost to their knees
Complain about the present using memories
Never found their pot of gold
Wrinkled hands pound weary holes
Each line screams out you're old, you're old, you're old
But nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

And the flower lady hobbles home without a sale
Tattered shreds of petals leave a fading trail
Not a pause to hold a rose
Even she no longer knows
The lamp goes out the evening now is closed
And nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady

[ConsAreLiars]

12. Nobody else could have seen that truth

and told it so poignantly. There is a Youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UyZKYq5kEs&mode=related&search=

[Hardrada]

7. I have missed Phil Ochs for decades!!

His music was such a great party of the antiwar movement I knew and participated in.

[WinkyDink]

8. Phil Ochs was my god. Is it wrong to say I LOVE (present tense) the

album cover of him in that gold lame' suit?!

[americanstranger]

9. My favorite:

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
as long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

---

Phil was an iconoclast, and that's what I loved about him most.

- as

[The Magistrate]

11. He Is One Of The Great Ones, Sir

Many thanks for the links and the reminder.

A beautiful man.

[ConsAreLiars]

15. Indeed, a beautiful man.

Deeply troubled (maybe a consequence of seeing too clearly), but an ability to see and tell the core truth of the reality of the sadly deformed world we live in and the courage and talent to communicate that insight with deep compassion.

[shanti]

13. pleasures of the harbor

damn, i do remember that album. has it been that long?

[ninkasi]

14. Sometimes

the truth is so great that only poets and singers can tell it. I've only known one man who was both, and even so, he wasn't well known, but he was my brother's best friend, and they are both dead now. I hope my brother is listening to Townes someplace, and they can have poetry quoting contests in bars and pool halls, just as they did on earth.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

18. How about Phil's statement regarding Tricky Dick?

A rewrite to Here's to the State of Mississippi (one of the most politically powerful songs I have ever heard) and a great comment on the
commander-in-chief of Phil's era:


Here's to the State of Richard Nixon
For underneath his borders the devil draws no line
If you drag his muddy rivers nameless bodies you will find
And the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes
And the calender is lyin' when it reads the present time

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the schools Richard Nixon
Where they're teaching all the children they don't have to care
All the rudiments of hatred are present everywhere
And every single classroom is a factory of despair

Oh, there's nobody learnin' such as foreign word as fair
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the laws Richard Nixon
Where the wars are fought in secret, Pearl Harbor every day
He punishes with income tax that he don't have to pay
And he's tapping his own brother just to here what he would say
But corruption can be classic in the Richard Nixon way

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

And here's to the churches Richard Nixon and Billy Graham
Where the cross, once made of silver, now is caked with rust
And the Sunday mornin sermons pander to their lust
All the fallen face of Jesus is chokin' in the dust
And Heaven only knows in which God they can trust

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of
And here's to the government Richard Nixon

In the swamp of their bureaucracy their always boggin' down
And criminals are posing as advisors to the crown
And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sound
And the speeches of the President are the ravings of a clown

Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

[OneBlueSky]

19. "Draft Dodger Rag" . . . by Phil Ochs . . .

Oh, I'm just a typical American boy from a typical American town
I believe in God and Senator Dodd and a-keepin' old Castro down
And when it came my time to serve I knew "better dead than red"
But when I got to my old draft board, buddy, this is what I said:

CHORUS
Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school
And I'm working in a DEE-fense plant

I've got a dislocated disc and a wracked up back
I'm allergic to flowers and bugs
And when the bombshell hits, I get epileptic fits
And I'm addicted to a thousand drugs
I got the weakness woes, I can't touch my toes
I can hardly reach my knees
And if the enemy came close to me
I'd probably start to sneeze

I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school
And I'm working in a DEE-fense plant

Ooh, I hate Chou En Lai, and I hope he dies,
One thing you gotta see
That someone's gotta go over there
And that someone isn't me
So I wish you well, Sarge, give 'em Hell!
Kill me a thousand or so
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore
I'll be the first to go

Yes, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school
And I'm working in a DEE-fense plant

[regnaD kciN]

22. Sounds like Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney...

Sarge, I'm only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma's getting worse
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain't no fool, I'm a-goin' to school
And I'm working in a DEE-fense plant

...not to mention Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle, Michael Medved, Bill Bennett, and too many other neocons to mention...not omitting our very own War President. :grr:

[AlienGirl]

20. We need him back...

:cry:

[ConsAreLiars]

21. Kick, for a few more to see. (n/t)

[regnaD kciN]

23. One of the saddest things about Phil Ochs...

...was that he essentially vanished from American popular culture long before he took his life.

I was a teenager (and an aspiring folksinger) in the late '60s and early '70s. Needless to say, I was ultra-familiar with Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Buffy Ste. Marie, and countless other folk-protest singers of the early '60s who were still active at that time. But Phil Ochs? By then, barely a few years after the "folk boom," he was virtually unknown -- recalled, only, as a strange guy who went around in gold Elvis suits. I remember hearing the song "Small Circle of Friends" on one of the Boston "underground" FM stations, but never knew who wrote or performed it.

News of his death only brought a vague reaction of "oh, yes, I remember that guy -- he had a couple of A&M albums that tanked -- sounds like an eccentric." It was only a few months later that I stumbled across a copy of "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" in the local public library, listened to the whole thing, and left shaking my head in disbelief at how I could have missed him before, and at how he hadn't been a household name during my youth.

For my money, there are no more tragic stories in that era's music than those of Tim Buckley and Phil Ochs. :-(

[ConsAreLiars]

25. Like you, I never heard him played or celebrated. An unsung hero,

truly. I heard a few of his songs, "Love me, I'm a liberal," "I Ain't Marching Anymore" "Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends," and such, but it took a while before I even learned his name and eventually discovered more of the full depth of the truths he sang.

[ConsAreLiars]

24. And this line: "We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began"

Lyrics from http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics.html

White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land
By Phil Ochs

The pilots playing poker in the cockpit of the plane
The casualties arriving like the dropping of the rain
And a mountain of machinery will fall before a man
When you're white boots marching in a yellow land

It's written in the ashes of the village towns we burn
It's written in the empty bed of the fathers unreturned
And the chocolate in the childrens eyes will never understand
When you're white boots marching in a yellow land

Red blow the bugles of the dawn
The morning has arrived you must be gone
And the lost patrol chase their chartered(*) souls
Like cold/old(?) whores following tired armies

Train them well, the men who will be fighting by your side
And never turn your back if the battle turns the tide
For the colours of a civil war are louder than commands
When you're white boots marching in a yellow land

Blow them from the forest and burn them from your sight
Tie their hands behind their back and question through the night
But when the firing squad is ready they'll be spitting where they stand
At the white boots marching in a yellow land

Red blow the bugles of the dawn
The morning has arrived you must be gone
And the lost patrol chase their chartered souls
Like cold whores following tired armies

The comic and the beauty queen are dancing on the stage
Raw recruits are lining up like coffins in a cage
We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began
We're the white boots marching in a yellow land

And the lost patrol chase their chartered souls
like cold whores following tired armies