The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76784   Message #1368339
Posted By: GUEST
31-Dec-04 - 02:26 PM
Thread Name: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
Subject: RE: info pls: 60s music & spirituality
Art, thank you for mentioning the Jim & Jean cover of "Crucifixion," which is an old favorite.

I'm aware of the song's overt reference to John Kennedy and his assasination but keep hearing more in it. Isn't that possible, in the way that the Book of Job is about more than Job, or Oedipus Rex is about more than Oedipus? We write tales of kings and heroes, but they resonate beyond their particular lives.

I dug this bit up from the Phil Ochs Web site:

Phil was also quoted (on 15-Dec-1965) as saying this about the song: "It's a song about Christ-killing, how all America and even, especially, New York loves to create heroes to moralize to them and then kill them violently, bloodily and dig the death so much, every detail of the death. It's a song about Jesus Christ. It's called The Crucifixion. It's a song about Kennedy. And maybe a song about Dylan." (In an interview a few months earlier, Phil expressed the belief that it would soon be too dangerous for Dylan to play out in public because he had become one of those heroes.)