Here comes Phil Ochs shovel on his shoulder
Trailing a hoe along the Ho Chi Minh trail
But the trail is on Bleeker Street
And Phil's on his uppers
It's the mid-nineteen seventies and its not looking too good
For a man with a mission and a man with a passion
When you run out of fashion
And it don't come crawling back
Here comes Phil Ochs, he's got a chip on his shoulder
They can't cut his jacket to cover it up
When one war is over but ten are beginning
And the movement's gone missing because they all just moved away
Oh they moved into property, they moved off into futures
They moved into ads, and that's as sad as it can get
Run, run, run from Phil,
Phil's on a three-day drunk
He's up on his high horse, he's staggering and sauced
Run, run, run from Phil,
Phil's on a three-day drunk
But he wasn't alone when he stumbled off course
Here comes Phil Ochs, devil on his shoulder
Carrying his guitar and the weight of the world
But if there's a place for the millionaires,
then there's space for the troubadour
And while there's a space, there's always a chance out there
That a melody lingers, and we keep getting singers
Who've got more on their minds
Than the latest Dow Jones share…
Trailing a hoe along the Ho Chi Minh trail
But the trail is on Bleeker Street
And Phil's on his uppers
It's the mid-nineteen seventies and its not looking too good
For a man with a mission and a man with a passion
When you run out of fashion
And it don't come crawling back
Here comes Phil Ochs, he's got a chip on his shoulder
They can't cut his jacket to cover it up
When one war is over but ten are beginning
And the movement's gone missing because they all just moved away
Oh they moved into property, they moved off into futures
They moved into ads, and that's as sad as it can get
Run, run, run from Phil,
Phil's on a three-day drunk
He's up on his high horse, he's staggering and sauced
Run, run, run from Phil,
Phil's on a three-day drunk
But he wasn't alone when he stumbled off course
Here comes Phil Ochs, devil on his shoulder
Carrying his guitar and the weight of the world
But if there's a place for the millionaires,
then there's space for the troubadour
And while there's a space, there's always a chance out there
That a melody lingers, and we keep getting singers
Who've got more on their minds
Than the latest Dow Jones share…
Contributed by Alessandro - 2010/2/3 - 10:31
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Album "Long Pig"
Scritta da Steve Skaith e Mike Jones
Phil Ochs was a talented singer-songwriter of the 1960s who addressed all manner of anti-war, civil rights, labour, and social justice issues in America. To Ochs, music was a means to carry a message and with unending optimism claimed young men and women could change the world for the better if only they were willing. By the late 60s, increasing weariness and disenchantment with idealism began to seep into both his compositions and his singing. Phil Ochs took his own life in 1976.