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PHIL OCHS |
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Phil Ochs And so people walk up to me and ask, "Do you really believe in what your songs are saying?" And I have to smile and think back to the songs and the hours stolen by flickering thoughts dancing just out of my reach occasionally being drawn in by the magnet of an aroused mind. And I think of the absurd fears that gripped me as I drove down to Mississippi last summer listening to the accounts of the freshly discovered bodies. Or I think of my car spinning wildly out of control on a Kentucky mountainside just before spending Christmas in Hazard, Kentucky. I remember climbing up rickety ladders to the tops of speaker-trucks to sing in the cold weather at countless rallies, watching the familiar faces of frustrated radicals. And my vanity flutters as I hear again the cheers of audiences of thousands applauding an entertainer, or perhaps applauding the hope that all is not phony. And I force myself to wonder that perhaps I am as phony as the world I criticize and that I am the greatest fool of all. I realize that I can't feel any nobility for what I write because I know my life could never be as moral as my songs. I know I'm sticking my neck out and I know I'll be attacked. I remember the attacks of the reactionaries and I have to laugh; I remember the attacks of those I came to respect and the hurt is still there. I wonder if I'll be investigated and what I could say to a Congress consisting of too many spineless men for whom I could hold nothing but contempt. And I wait for the faceless American Legionnaire from Ohio to grab me by the collar and yell, "What about Korea, kid?" And, I am warned again -- "Write only of your own experiences, only the naive would be so pretentious as to write 'finger-pointing' songs." And the longer I write, the longer is the list of complaints: (1) There's nothing as dull as yesterday's headlines, (2) Don't be so ambitious, (3) Sure it's good, but who's gonna care next year?; (4) I bet you don't go to church; (5) Don't be so negative; (6) I came to be entertained, not preached to; (7) That's nice but it really doesn't go far enough; (8) That's not folk music; (9) Why don't you move to Russia? And yet every once in a while an idea grabs me and the familiar excitement returns as I turn myself on with the birth of a new song. And I know again that I'll never kick the habit of writing. And so people walk up to me and ask, "Do you really believe in what your songs are saying?" And I have to smile and reply, "Hell, no, but the money's good." For what else could I say to such a question. Table of Contents:
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