2006 has been a good year for folk-based singer-songwriters, with The Boss’ take on Pete Seeger, a fine effort by Josh Ritter, the Jon Auer disc I talked about yesterday, David Ford, and more. Listening to some of those guys got me thinking about the grand American folk tradition. You often hear that Bob Dylan was the heir Woody Guthrie, and there is a lot of truth to that. But, for my money, the real heir to the throne was Phil Ochs.
While Dylan went electric and expanded his songwriting themes far beyond “protest” material, Ochs held much closer to the ideal. Moreover, while Dylan often wrote on grand themes, he rarely dealt with explicitly topical material. Ochs, on the other hand, was a master at creating a powerful song out of a very particular event or series of events. In short, Dylan was a poet who happened to sing the occasional protest song. Ochs was a revolutionary who happened to do his work through song.
All of this is not meant to be a judgment that one is better than the other. Both are amazing poets, and both have contributed immensely the great American folk tradition. Depending on your tastes and what you are looking for at a particular time, you may prefer one or the other. And given the expansiveness of Dylan’s career, I don’t think you could argue that Ochs was as “important” by any reasonable standard. Still, the point is to show that there is a discussion to be had here. And I’m guessing that a huge majority of the people reading this have never even heard of Phil Ochs.
And that’s a shame because in addition to playing an important role in the development of protest music in the 60s, he also wrote some great songs. Most of his work was done between 1964 and 1970, though he continued to tour and write the occasional new song in the early 70s. No one can know for sure, but my guess is that his case of biopolar disorder, combined with a lack of commercial success, an attack by robbers that damaged his singing voice, and the general air of decay as the promise of the 60s proved to be ephemeral to leave him too depressed to function. It all eventually got the better of him, and he committed suicide on April 9, 1976.
It is a sad ending, and one wonders how much of his brilliantly sarcastic wit, his bitter songs, his revolutionary goals were driven by his troubled mental state. Or if he had been able to deal with his illness, could he have even better harnessed his anger and continued to produce amazing music for decades? There’s no way to know, but I wish, for his sake, he could have been treated and helped.
It’s impossible for me to feel satisfied only discussing a few of his songs, but here’s a couple I enjoy:
This is my favorite song by him, and also the first I ever heard. His introduction describes it perfectly: “In every American community, you have varying shades of political opinion, and one of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects. Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. So here then is a lesson in safe logic…”
I could quote lyrics from this song all day, but I’ll limit it to my favorite verse, and you can read the rest here.
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
This song makes clear another important distinction between him and Dylan. Ochs’ music conveys a bitterness almost impossible to imagine from Bobby. He is sarcastic and caustic, frustrated to no end by the apathy, the self-satisfied attitude of an America which claims to uphold fundamental ideals but fails to ever do anything about it. How could a society supposedly devoted to equality and justice stand for the continued existence of crushing poverty, segregation, the Vietnam war, and so on?
He had his share of acrimony for conservatives, and those he believed to be ideologically committed to the continuation of injustice. But, as this song shows, more than anything he was frustrated with those liberals who shared his political goals but were too comfortable to accept the need for fundamental changes. As someone who has grown increasingly frustrated by the Democrats and their race to the middle, by their refusal to make a fight out of issues like gay marriage, health care, and Iraq (until public opinion shifted enough to make it an easy decision, of course), I empathize a great deal with Ochs.
Still, it’s important to remember that, for all his bitterness and pessimism, he was not entirely without hope. A ray of sunshine makes it through the clouds here and there. And when that happens, it is incredibly powerful, because you know it is not a false optimism. In spite of all the troubles, he could still find reasons to believe in America.
This song makes that clear. The chorus speaks of an America full of hope and promise, of great ideals and great means:
Here is a land full of power and glory
Beauty that words cannot recall
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Her glory shall rest on us all
At the same time, he emphasizes the important message, reminiscent of the famous quote from Eugene Debs (who received 913,664 votes for President in 1920, while in prison, by the way):
Yet she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand
In addition to being a beautiful piece of poetry, this is a profoundly optimistic vision. To believe in America is to believe that it can continue to grow, that the situation we find ourselves in is not inevitable.
Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon
Despite the topical focus of his songs, most retain a timeless feel. Even if the details have changed, the fundamental message remains important and rings out clearly.
This song, though, is not only applicable in a timeless sense – it feels immediately relevant, to the extent that if you simply replaced “Richard Nixon” with “George W. Bush,” it could have been written in 2006. It’s all here: illegal wiretapping (“he’s tapping his own brother just to here what he would say”), religious extremism (“Heaven only knows in which God they can trust”), secret justifications for wars (“where the wars are fought in secret, Pearl Harbor every day”), unseemly criminal elements in high places (“criminals are posing as advisors to the crown”), and a sentiment that almost 70% of the country (in the most recent polls) would share: “Here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of / Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of.”
Once again, it’s an incredibly bitter song, yet still there is a glimmer of something beyond the frustration and the anger. “Here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of” suggests that there is something pure and good about America that can transcend this moment.
If you want a good introduction to Phil Ochs, the best place to start is his first album All the News That’s Fit to Sing, which includes “Power and the Glory,” and some other highlights such as “Bound for Glory” his tribute to Woody Guthrie, and “The Ballad of William Worthy” a journalist who violated travel bans (and the removal of his passport) to go to places like China, Cuba, and Vietnam for stories.
If you want more, there is a box set called Farewells and Fantasies that pretty fairly summarizes his whole career.