I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night

Let me tell you a story. A story about a man who was born during a war and grew up to despise them. A story about a man who was brought up to believe in freedom and equality, but found they didn't truly exist. A story about a man who never wanted to be a hero, but somehow ended up as one.

Let me tell you about Phil Ochs.

By all accounts, Phil Ochs didn't seem a likely rebel in his younger years - in fact, he was all set to build himself a career in journalism when, left accidentally stranded overnight in Florida on a trip, he was mistaken for a homeless man, arrested by police and subsequently jailed. This incident ostensibly turned Phil's mind to the thorny question of injustice in the US at that time, in the nascent years of the civil rights movement, and led him to New York where like-minded people occupied the Greenwich Village coffeeshops, writing poetry and singing protest songs.

Phil carved himself a niche within this music scene, quickly becoming friends with the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. He didn't have the poetic talent of the former or the mystique of the latter; Phil Ochs frequently made his point through satire, with lyrics that couldn't fail to put smiles on the faces of his audience. Whether it was spoofing scaremongering adverts during the Cuban Missile Crisis ("Here comes the President, but first this word from Pepsodent...have whiter teeth, have cleaner breath, when you're facin' nuclear death.") or the attitude of men who were all in favour of a foreign war as long as it didn't require them to go and fight ("I hate Chou En Lai, I hope he dies, but one thing you gotta see...is that someone's gotta go over there, and that someone isn't me") Phil's marvellously ironic words never failed to hit the nail on the head.

In addition, many of his more impassioned protest songs gained him a following among the fledgling anti-war movement, and it's not uncommon to find video footage of Phil performing songs like I Ain't Marchin' Anymore or I'm Going To Say It Now before throngs of idealistic young students. However, whereas Bob Dylan's anthems of the era gained him a worldwide audience, Phil Ochs' material never garnered the same kind of commercial success. The gulf in fame and fortune between the two caused friction at times, leading Dylan to famously throw Ochs out of his car at one point with the spiteful remark, "you're not a folk singer, Ochs, you're just a journalist."

Dylan may not have been far wrong. In many of Phil's songs there seems an almost journalistic quality; in contrast to Dylan's poetic/philosophical musings, Phil Ochs seemed ever the moralistic travel writer, documenting the lives of the poor and downtrodden wherever he went. However, as the Sixties ground on and commercial and critical success continued to elude Phil, the world started to get the better of him, and before long he was suffering from severe depression, as well as a lot of unwanted attention from the US government due to some of his more radical words (the back cover of his third record contained a selection of poems by Mao Zedong, accompanied by the question: IS THIS THE ENEMY?)

I've loved Phil's music for many years, but this weekend it's very much on my mind, as on the 19th of December 2010 Ochs would have been seventy years old. However, he sadly didn't make it this far; in April 1976, still plagued by depression, he committed suicide at his sister's home.

For Phil's birthday weekend, I urge you to track down and listen to a few of his songs, to help keep the man's legacy alive. Here's a few suggestions to set you off:

There But For Fortune perhaps sums up everything that Phil Ochs so passionately believed in. Behind every troubled soul that exists within our society, there lies "a young man with so many reasons why...and there but for fortune may go you or I." Later covered by Joan Baez, Phil's original remains for me the most resonant version.

Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends is one of my favourite satirical songs; in it, Phil rails against social apathy and our unwillingness to help neighbours in need, over the top of a jaunty ragtime tune.

In contrast, Here's To The State Of Mississippi is a very serious, very direct, and very moving condemnation of the institutionalised corruption and racism of southern states in the US in the Sixties. A classic Ochs protest song.

And you just can't beat an Edgar Allen Poe poem set to music, like The Bells.

There are plenty of other Phil Ochs songs out there worth hearing - The Draft Dodger Rag, Love Me I'm A Liberal, The Highwayman, Rehearsals For Retirement, and so many more - but I'll have to leave it to you to find them and take their message on board. And maybe, just maybe, it'll inspire you to bring some positive change to your own corner of the world. I can think of no more fitting tribute to Phil's memory.