Phil Ochs

This is going to be a hard few moments for me. So, dear readers bear with me.
Phil to quote my friend Fat_Buddha is one of the most criminally underrated singers of my generation. He did the Greenwich village thing, propped up Dylan during his hard times, and was spat on by Dylan as his star rose and Phil's fell. Those words would never have been uttered by Phil, he was much too decent to utter such prohanities.
Like all of my generation, he believed we were going to change the world, and we've ended up with Bush, Blair and Putin.
I had an idyllic childhood in Wiltshire - I could run through the fields, filled with buttercups and cuckoo flowers and poppies - go down to the stream to chase red throated sticklebacks who always eluded my nets and roam through the woods - listening to the birds in the spring and seeking out their nests - only to take one egg - so that the rest of the brood would survive.
Bit like Dennis Potter's, "Blue Remembered Hills" re. his childhood in the Forest of Dean - more on this on another day. Ochs' childhood must have been much the same - read the words here but go somewhere else to listen to the wonderful melodies that he wrapped around it:-

Boy In Ohio
By Phil Ochs
G C G
Creek was running by the road
D
And the Buckeye sun was a-shinin'
G C G
I rode my bike down Alum Creek Drive
Em Am
When I was a boy in Ohio
G C G
The English teacher he didn't care
F
He challenged us to checkers
Bb Dm D7
And once in a while we'd swap a joke
Eb
When I was a boy in Ohio
Once I was caught playing hooky from school
They found me home in the evening
I confessed I had been to the movie show
When I was a boy in Ohio
We would wait for the summer to come
For swimmin' and pickin' berries
But now a freeway covers the field
Where I used to be so happy
I remember the Burger Boy
Where the girls would shine like the engines
And the radio was always loud
When I was a boy in Ohio
Spanish teacher she tried to help
She was much too pretty
So I just stared at the back of her legs
When I was a boy in Ohio
It was 3.2 beer* at the honky tonk bar
Where they said the girls were easy
But somehow I never found me one
When I was a boy in Ohio
Soon I was grown and I had to leave
And I've been all over the country
But I don't believe I've had more fun
Than when I was a boy in Ohio

This innocent boy, trained to be a journo, took off to be a folk singer in New York recorded songs such as, " I Ain't Marching Anymore" and got frantically involved in the civil rights movement, and the anti Vietnam war campaign and organised concerts to protect AllEnde's fragile government in Chile
and produced brilliantly biting songs such as "Here's to the State of Mississippi" and his anti-capital punishment masterpiece, " Iron Lady". These albums were cut on ELEKTRA, a label who recorded so many other great protest singers of my age.

Phil became disillusioned at the Democratic conference in Chicage where the anti- war candidate lost and Mayor Daly turned his dogs on the protesters. His response was to write the hauntingly lyrical:-

William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park and Escapes Unscathed
By Phil Ochs
Am C G
As I went out one evening to take the evening air
F G C F
I was blessed by a blood-red moon
Dm G Am G
In Lincoln Park the dark was turning
I spied a fair young maiden and a flame was in her eyes
And on her face lay the steel blue skies
Of Lincoln Park, the dark was turning
Turning
They spread their sheets upon the ground just like a wandering tribe
And the wise men walked in their Robespierre robes
Through Lincoln Park the dark was turning
The towers trapped and trembling, and the boats were tossed about
When the fog rolled in and the gas rolled out
From Lincoln Park the dark was turning
Turning
Like wild horses freed at last we took the streets of wine
But I searched in vain for she stayed behind
In Lincoln Park the dark was turning
I'll go back to the city where I can be alone
And tell my friend she lies in stone
In Lincoln Park the dark was turning

More another day.

Gordon