65 years old, you would be today! Can you imagine it?
But you're gone, leaving us in too much of a hurry with just your beautiful songs for us to remember you by:
When the echoes of my ecstacy appear
Wish I was here
Sorry I can't stop and talk now
I'm in kind of a hurry anyhow
But I'll send you a Tape From California.
We got the tape. This is just a note of thanks.
It's one of many. The others can be found, starting here. (The entire series is collected here).
I want to end my series of blogs on your songs with a few comments on the one I see as your greatest: "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends":
I returned to teaching just a little over four years ago, just weeks before 9/11 and merely a football-field from the Brooklyn Bridge--just across the river from the twin towers. We heard the sirens from the classroom, then more sirens. Then, and in the days after, I saw people stepping outside of their own lives to help others, an outpouring as great as any I've ever witnessed.
An outpouring that could have been harnessed for the good of all humanity, but that was hijacked by crass political agendas on the part of those who rule us. Soon, we were heading back to the isolationist "I've got mine" attitude that had characterized the eighties and nineties--and that Phil Ochs had lampooned even a decade earlier.
Toward the end of that first semester returning to teaching, that semester of 9/11, I read the lyrics of "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" to my students. I have read them to each class I have taught since (OK, I am an English teacher, so I even have an excuse).
The song opens with a verse inspired by the murder of Kitty Genovese while a couple of dozen people listened to her screams and did nothing:
Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
And this over a bright, tinny, honky-tonk piano.
"Hey! It's not my responsibility." For years, when I was younger and stronger and worked in garages (so was able to get many cars back on the road--at least enough to get them to real mechanics), I always carried a tool set in my trunk--along with a towing chain. I did so, in part, because of this verse:
Riding down the highway, yes, my back is getting stiff
Thirteen cars are piled up, they're hanging on a cliff.
Maybe we should pull them back with our towing chain
But we gotta move and we might get sued and it looks like it's gonna rain.
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
I don't do that any more. Why not? I like to claim its because I no longer have either the tools or the knowledge to work on today's cars. But I think that I, too, have succumbed to the fear and the protectionist attitudes that have overwhelmed our culture. So I'm promising myself: I will stop, when I see what looks like a problem. I have a cell phone, at least; if I can't help myself, maybe I can bring others who can.
This song should be a lesson to us all (to me, too--as I said). There are verses about attitudes towards the poor, towards free speech, and this:
Smoking marihuana is more fun than drinking beer,
But a friend of ours was captured and they gave him thirty years
Maybe we should raise our voices, ask somebody why
But demonstrations are a drag, besides we're much too high
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.
According to one
report,
12.9% of the drug prisoners in state prison and 18.9% of those in federal prison were incarcerated for marijuana/hashish offenses.
Given our incredibly high rate of incarceration, isn't it strange that we can't yet see that the answer to drug problems certainy isn't throwing people in jail? Certainly not for something as mild and innocent as marihuana.
Most of you reading this have been galvanized, these last years (as I have), into greater political action. There is much to be done, and there will be times where our energies will flag. When it does, all we need to do is put on this song, and then listen to the rest of Phil Ochs' music.
It can help re-energize us and help us move ahead.
Thank you, Phil, for the tapes that keep in arriving from your personal California. And (once again) Happy Birthday!!!!!