"You only are what you believe,
And I believe the war is over"
Another April 8th is upon us, and I look over the landscape of the world of popular music with a cautious eye today. This isn't a good day to be a musician. We lost Laura Nyro on this date in 1997, Kurt Cobain's body was found on this date in 1994, and, as America was preparing to celebrate the bicentennial in 1976, Phil Ochs, a man for whom it could be said suffered irrevocably for his love of America, took his own life in Far Rockaway, New York.
I am only 40 years old, so my observations of an earlier time are very much those of an outsider. Having said that, it always seems odd to me that the voice identified as the "conscience" of the 1960's is usually Bob Dylan. While it's safe to say that a great majority of Dylan's best work came from the period from 1963 to 1966, seeing Dylan at antiwar rallies and civil rights marches in the 1960's was a rare if not an altogether nonexistant sight. By the time of the Tet Offensive, Dylan was making country music albums, considered by many on the left at the time as the music of the "other side".
Of all the artists who left behind a musical footprint during the Vietnam War, you would be hard-pressed to find one more committed to solving the problems of the time than Phil Ochs. Sadly, you also find no example of someone more consumed, and eventually destroyed, by their commitment.
I was introduced to Phil Ochs' music in 1982 as a sophomore in high school. My school in Pennsylvania had a 10-watt radio station (which has since disappeared) and it was in the many hours that I spent there that I developed a true love for recorded music. I was surrounded by new wave and punk, which was music I didn't really get at the time due to growing up around boring musical influences from a heavily Republican family (I'm long since cured). One day, a friend brought in the album (it was one of those old-fashioned vinyl thingees with a hole in the center; remember those?) I Ain't Marching Anymore and my approach to music would never be the same.
As a songwriter, Phil seized upon events of his time as one part journalist, one part balladeer and, maybe most importantly, one part biting stand-up comedian. The song that drew me to Phil and kept me there was "Draft Dodger Rag", and it would end up being the first song I would sing in front of an audience in the junior year talent show over a year later:
"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"
In the days of Reagan, this seemed quaint. In the context of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, it was songs like these that earned Phil Ochs a broadcasting ban from the FCC for the balance of the 1960's.
Had Phil only trained his bayonet of a songwriting pen on the many injustices that surrounded him in his times, it is quite possible that his music would have disappeared without a trace, doomed to be lumped in with other less talented musical contemporaries. Where Phil excelled was in pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of those that surrounded him on his side of the political fence. Songs such as "Love Me, I'm a Liberal", "Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends" and the brilliant character study "The Party", pointed an accusatory musical finger at those he felt paid only lip service and half-hearted support to "the movement". My head spins when I think of how Phil, were he alive today, might have entombed a guy like Joe Lieberman in song for all posterity.
And yet as I sit here, a middle-aged, self-inflicted victim of rampant American consumerism, bloated and sedated by mind-numbing creature comforts and high fructose corn syrup, I am cognizant of the fact that if Phil were here today, his songs may very well be about people like me. On the cusp of 41, as angry as I am about the misplaced priorities of the country with its current leadership, I've yet to attend a rally or march to stop the war. I salve my conscience by telling myself that with a 9-month-old in the house, his needs take precedence over my own. Yet we're both citizens. What I do matters to him down the road. Does signing petitions for MoveOn.org count? I at least voted, and judging from my state's last election results, my vote counted and wasn't suppressed. Is that good enough?
"But we've gotta move
And we might get sued
And it looks like it's gonna rain"
Excuses. Excuses.
Sometimes, all of us need a boot in the backside to do the right thing. Phil played the role of the boot in the 1960's for people on his side of the fence. The most important thing he did in that role was do it with a sense of humor. There's something about telling people they're lazy while smiling that makes one be viewed as less self-righteous than one who doesn't smile and says the same thing. Today, 31 years after leaving this world, I yearn for someone just like Phil to tell me what an insufferably lazy bastard I am when it comes to saving my country, but to do it with the brightest of smiles on their face.
"All my days won't be dances of delight when I'm gone
And the sands will be shifting from my sight when I'm gone
Can't add my name into the fight while I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here"