December 2001/
January 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Listening to Phil Ochs Again

Arnie Alpert is New Hampshire Program Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee.

When George W. Bush labeled the September 11 terrorist attacks acts of war, I started hearing a tune in my head. It's a simple, bouncy tune, played on an acoustic guitar. The lyrics are not subtle: "Hup, two, three, four, marching down the street / rolling of the drums and the tramping of the feet/ generals salute, and the mothers waving wheat, here comes the big parade." The song, "One More Parade," was written by the young Phil Ochs in 1961, before most Americans had heard of a country called Vietnam.

I've had Phil Ochs on my mind ever since. Sometimes I find myself crying when I listen to "When I'm Gone," "A Toast to Those Who Are Gone," or "Song of My Returning," and think about his suicide. I never met him, but I miss him.

Phil Ochs was perhaps the premier "protest singer" of the era. In the tradition of Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, and the troubadours of old, Ochs used poetry and music to inform, enrage, and inspire. He wrote about racism and civil rights, capital punishment, strikes and struggles of workers, and of course, Vietnam. From his pen poured out the lyric lines to "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land," "Cops of the World," "The War is Over," and more.

When President George W. Bush called for all good patriots to rise to the defense of their country's way of life by going shopping, I could not resist. I headed to my local independent music store and picked up a 3-CD set of Phil Ochs recordings. Some songs ("When I'm Gone," "There But for Fortune," and "Power and Glory," for example) stand the test of time and will be sung for generations. Others stand more as testimony to the times in which they were written. For young people interested in understanding the "sixties generation," it is hard to find better sources than "Too Many Martyrs," "Outside a Small Circle of Friends," "Draft Dodger Rag," and "The Marines Have Landed on the Shores of Santo Domingo."

The boxed set includes a previously unreleased tune written in 1965, "We Seek No Wider War." The line comes from a speech by President Johnson, and Ochs used it to highlight the deception and self-deception of the time. The song refers to advisers, defoliants, escalation, and the French wars in Vietnam that preceded ours. As Ochs no doubt expected, the war widened and went on for another ten years.

One line printed in the booklet that accompanies the album (but curiously not found in the song) goes:

"And the evil is done in the hopes that evil surrenders/ But the deeds of the devil are buried too deep in the embers." Could we hope for a better critique of the latest US war?

I'm sure some will say, "This is different. Afghanistan is not Vietnam." This is true; Afghanistan is not Vietnam, and as Lloyd Bentsen might have said (but probably wouldn't), Osama bin Laden is no Ho Chi Minh.

And we could add: Afghanistan is not Grenada. It is not Sudan. It is not Somalia. It is not Lebanon. It is not Panama. It is not Kosovo. It is not Iraq. It is not Colombia. It is not El Salvador. It is not Guatemala. It is not Nicaragua. It is not Haiti. It is not Angola. It is not Libya. It is not Honduras. It is not Vieques. Each place the United States has sent soldiers or bombs (or "advisers") in the last twenty years has been different.

Phil Ochs' songs about Vietnam reflected his understanding of past wars, against enemies foreign and domestic, real and imagined, praiseworthy and evil. He's no longer with us. So when George W. Bush says "every American is a soldier, and every citizen is in this fight," I say "I ain't marchin' anymore."

Previous Article    Next Article