What a funny and sweet coincidence that I should suddenly feel like listening to Phil Ochs this evening, decide to do some Googling about him, and discover your site to learn that today is Phil's birthday! (Technically, by the time I've registered and get this posted it won't be, but...)

I loved Phil. In the mid- to late-sixties you couldn't turn on the radio w/out hearing one of his songs - either sung by him or by Jim & Jean, Joan Baez, etc. Some people think the Beatles were the '60s, but for me, the '60s was Phil Ochs. I remember where I was working in 1976 when I heard on the news that he'd killed himself - I was devastated. I always wondered if he just didn't have a cause anymore and felt irrelevant after Nixon pulled the US troops out of Viet Nam. He seemed to start fading out of the scene after the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention...

Likewise, he sort of faded into the background of my conscience over the decades, tho I never forgot about him. Occasionally, I'd find myself humming "Changes" or "Draft Dodger Rag", but he was sort of a pleasant/sad memory. Then Sept 11th happened and on that horrible day as I watched all these poor people being interviewed in their shock and grief, TV reporters sticking their microphones into the faces of people looking for their loved ones and pounding them with questions, the line from"Crucifixion", "...and do you have a picture of the pain?" kept going through my head over and over, coupled with the image of the poor souls on the hijacked airliners slamming into buildings, "...with the speed of insanity they die." I just couldn't get those lines out of my head.

When we finally crawled out of the house a week later and started trying to pretend like life was normal, I went to a record store to see if I could find "Crucifixion". I found the 3-CD compilation "Farewells & Fantasies". When I played it, I was amazed at how prolific Phil was! It had been 30 yrs since I'd heard anything of his, so many of the titles didn't ring a bell offhand, but as soon as I played them, I remembered every song on those discs - they'd all gotten airtime. Many were "hits" (for lack of a better term), but all were played. He didn't seem to have any bad 'B' sides.

Every time Bush, Cheney & Company open their mouths and tell us unspeakable lies about the need to go to war and the righteousness of it as US troops are dying and Iraqi civilians by the tens of thousands are being slaughtered (euphemistically called "collateral damage"), I wish Phil were here to document the deceit.

Phil Ochs was a amazing force, and it still breaks my heart when I think about his loss, but I'm so happy to have stumbled across this site on his birthday! Thanks.