Not Quite the Best of Phil Ochs But Still Great (KCFoxy Anniversary Rewriteoff)
Written: Sep 21 '01 (Updated Sep 21 '01)
Product Rating:
Pros: Live version of "I Ain't Marching Anymore", songs from four albums on one
Cons: Missing notable songs from other labels
The Bottom Line: Athough certainly not a true greatest hits album since many of Ochs' most popular songs are not present, this is still a wonderful album well worth owning.
quasar's Full Review: The War Is Over: Best of Phil Ochs by Phil Ochs
It is a sad fact that quite often Greatest Hits albums are missing several of the best songs by that artist. Usually this is due to rights issues - many artists record for more than one label over the course of their careers and "Best of" or "Greatest Hits" albums produced by one label rarely include hits from the other labels.
Sadly, The War is Over (subtitled "The Best of Phil Ochs") suffers from this syndrome. Don't get me wrong. The War is Over is a great album. It has 16 wonderful tracks; listeners will not be disappointed. But it is missing many of Ochs hits from his Elektra albums. "The Power and the Glory", "Draft Dodger Rag", "Love Me, I'm a Liberal", and "When I'm Gone" are all notable Elektra tracks that belong on any true "Best of Phil Ochs" album. Even though "There But for Fortune" is generally associated with Joan Baez, it too deserves consideration on any best of album.
What does the album have? It has 16 songs written and performed by Ochs that originally appeared on one of the four Ochs A&M albums (Pleasures of the Harbor, Tape From California, Rehearsals For Retirement, Phil Ochs' Greatest Hits). Most of these songs are longer introspective songs that complain about the ills of the world in a more personal way than his earlier overtly political protest songs. Ochs did write and record a few protest songs in the style of his older Elektra work during this period, most notably "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" to protest the general apathy that seemed to have set into society.
The Songs
Of the introspective tracks, "Tapes from California" is a standout. Like several of the songs from this phase of Ochs' career, it focuses on the decline of the New York folk scene and how everyone was flocking to California:
New York City has exploded and it's crashed upon my head
I dove beneath the bed
Fighting, biting nails, turning pale
The landlord's at my window
And the burglar's at my door
I can't take it anymore
"Flower Lady" is quite simply one of the most poetic songs I've ever heard. A pointed reminder that in times of strife it's the economy, but even more the individuals trying to eke out a living who suffer, the flower lady seems to both represent these people and to highlight that when times are tough people don't always seem to take the time to enjoy life or to remind the people important to them how important they are by giving the traditional gift of flowers. I hadn't listened to this song with its simple melody in a while and I was struck anew by just how powerful and beautiful the lyrics really are:
Smoke dreams of escaping souls are drifting by
Dull the pain of living as they slowly die
Smiles change into a sneer
washed away by whiskey tears
In the quicksand of their mind they disappear
Still nobody's buying flowers from the flower lady
"Half a Century High" wins the award for the most creative uses of the word "tube." Each verse illustrates a different part of life and the tube central to life in that stage. Starting with the freedom and hope and potential we all have at birth (In the tube where I was born) through the years of growing up in front of the television (In the tube where I was raised) to the years of drug use (In the tube where I was fed) to finally suicide(In the tube where I was killed), the song hauntingly starts with innocense and leads to a sense of being let down by the world that leads to drug addiction and death. Other than the repeating final lines of each verse (I'm a quarter of a century old/But I'm half a century high) there aren't any overt drug references. The song is a bit subtle - you know Ochs is protesting against life but it really isn't clear the song is about drugs and suicide at the first listen, and one of the great things about this song is that it could be interpreted in multiple ways at multiple levels.
I must admit I don't particularly like "The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns." It has a haunting dramatic slow melody that just doesn't fit the repetitive somewhat obscure lyrics. I don't really understand this song or its point; it seems a shame to have wasted one of the better, more dramatic Ochs melodies here.
"The War is Over" is sort of a slow march, almost a ballad with march elements. One of the more multi-faceted Ochs songs, it contains many of the themes present in earlier Ochs songs - that the way to end war is to not fight, that the protesters are not always the idealistic good guys fighting against the horrible soldiers (a pretty unpopular position for a folk singer of that era), that the soldier who came home from war need to somehow find a way to move on with their lives.
"One Way Ticket Home" is a short song lamenting how every place starts looking the same when you see enough places and how the only place that's different is home.
Another introspective story song, "Rehearsals for Retirement" tells the tale of an embittered cynical man who expects the worst from the world and seems disappointed when he ends his life surrounded by laughter.
"Chords of Love" is an unusually fast Ochs song with a bit of a country feel. At the same time it is one of his most depressing songs, a song about the life of a musician and the inevitable downfall waiting for anyone who tries to make it big. From the fickleness of an audience to loneliness to the what ifs, this song gives us a real glimpse of the life of a traveling musician:
They'll rob you of your innocence
They will put you up for sale
The more that you will find success
The more that you will fail
I been around, I've had my share
And I really can't complain
But I wonder who I left behind
The other side of fame
A twangy country song, "Gas Station Women" laments lost love and the need to escape from life when things go badly. Using the gas theme on several levels: paying for some semblance of filling the lonliness, paying for gas to drive away from the scene of lost love, filling up with alcohol as an escape:
I cannot face another girl, I believe I'll turn to drink
So I won't remember, so I won't have to think
Tomorrow will bring happiness or, at least, another day
So I will bid farewell and I'll be on my way
Fill 'er up with love
"Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" was the first Phil Ochs song I ever heard and a song I fell in love with immediately. It combines a peppy upbeat melody with intense pointed lyrics that seem even more jarring when contrasted to the happy tune. A song protesting the general apathy that seems to have somehow fallen over our society, there is enough truth to this song to make anyone squirm:
Oh look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends
The simple story of a sailor getting his first shore leave in a long time, "Pleasures of the Harbor" paints a beautiful word picture of the quick sex, the quick drink, the lonliness among the crowds. It's also a song about longing, about how during the bad times we need to dream that something better will be in our future. Coming in at just over 8 minutes, this is a very slow very sad song that really strikes a chord with me.
Written for the movie of the same name but never used, "Kansas City Bomber" is about a roller derby queen concentrating on her career to the exclusion of a personal life and how she channels everything into a rage and fury against the opposing players. Even in a simple song designed to be a bit more commercial than his norm, Ochs manages to underly tones of lonliness underneath a song that is, on the surface, merely about roller derby.
One of the few Ochs songs obviously directly about the war in Vietnam, "White Boots Marching In a Yellow Land" presents both the horrors of war (It's written in the ashes of the village towns we burn/It's written in the empty bed of the fathers unreturned) and his belief that we never should have been involved in a civil war half way around the world (We're fighting in a war we lost before the war began/We're the white boots marching in a yellow land).
A haunting slow song filled with rolling piano sections on the surface about James Dean, "Jim Dean Of Indiana" is both a tribute to James Dean and a reminder to follow your dreams but not to forget your roots once you achieve them.
He never seemed to find a play with the flatlands and the farmers
So he had to leave one day, he said to be an actor
Once he'd come back to the farm with starlets from the stages
They locked themselves inside his room, the people turned their faces
"No More Songs" is another slow pretty song, this one a depressing admission of writer's block and how as those things that once seemed to inspire protest slowly just start seeming normal and expected.
A scar is in the sky,
It's time to say goodbye.
A whale is on the beach,
He's dying.
A white flag in my hand,
And a white bone in the sand.
And it seems that there are no more songs.
A&M was able to include a live version of "I Ain't Marching Anymore," a track that originally appeared on an Elektra album. This is Phil's favorite song and one of his best. He travels through various wars, pointing out how the old never seem to have any problem sending the young off to war, and the young need to start refusing:
For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning
I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore
Ochs writes with an honesty and clarity that is both unusual and moving. His songs are often multi-layered, songs that still surprise after many listens. This is a great album and I would recommend it to anyone. But it would have been even better as a true "Greatest Hits" album with the best tracks from both Elektra and A&M.
KCFoxy Second Anniversary Rewriteoff
This review is part of the KcFoxy Second Anniversary Rewriteoff organized by Pogomom. The assignment: re-write an early review and make it better. Although not one of my absolutely earliest reviews (it was my 11th), and already in mind showing great improvement from my first efforts, I chose to re-write this review because I actually had a request to add some more information from a reader. So if you liked this enhanced review, thank Horswhipr.
The following members took part in the celebration:
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