Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Crucifixion


What should I post on Thanksgiving?  On November 22?  Ordinarily, on TG, I’d just post “The Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” and that would be it.  But…this is another day.  I heard Phil once explaining this song, that it had taken him more than two years to write, that he had sung it, a capella, to Robert Kennedy, in Kennedy’s Senate office.  It is, for me, one of the most amazing songs I have ever heard (it’s on his album Pleasures of the Harbor, released in 1967).  And it’s Phil’s masterpiece.  I doubt if 1 in 10,000 people in America have ever heard it. 

Phil Ochs, Crucifixion,
(From the album, released 10/31/67) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dGDYM-kYec (Live in Montreal, 10/22/66) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPXi49dWTE4

Images of innocence charge him go on
But the decadence of destiny is looking for a pawn
To a nightmare of knowledge he opens up the gate
And a blinding revelation is laid upon his plate
That beneath the greatest love is a hurricane of hate
And God help the critic of the dawn.

No comments:

Post a Comment