The following is excerpted from a wonderful article by Richard Just titled Why Phil Ochs is the obscure ’60s folk singer America needs in 2017. Although reading the full article from the Washington Post is important, the collection of vintage videos featuring Phil Ochs is priceless.
After all these years I still maintain my appreciation of the late, great Phil Ochs. My copy of the album, I Ain’t Marching Anymore, is lost in the years of moving, changing media, and the demise of the good old record player, but I still remember the picture of Phil sitting with his back against the wall covered with posters and peace signs. Ah, the sixties.
But the whole concept of war still exists—it’s brutality, unfairness, deviousness and corruption—and what Phil Ochs wrote fifty years ago it still true:
It’s always the old to lead us to the war
It’s always the young to fall
Now look at all we’ve won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all.
A Celebration of Reading 