Just found this one:

IF PHIL OCHS WAS STILL ALIVE
(Tom Flannery)

Sometimes I'm still hesitant
to say what I want to say
afraid of what people might think
if I really joined the fray
but then I'll hang my head some
and onward will I strive
afraid what Phil Ochs would do
if he was still alive

The friends he had are just like mine
a selective sort of crew
they'll stop by when they need a hand
and then look at you askew
when you talk about the killing
being done in our own name
they'll make a rush towards the door
not wanting to take the blame

They say Phil Ochs killed himself
but that was never true
he was killed by those around him
on his search for lost virtue
like a tree they chopped from the bottom up
chipped away his psyche
until there wasn't enough to stand no more
and he no longer cared to be

Well these are crazy times we're living in
and I sure could use some help
everybody's gagged with the flag
I end up talking to myself
some nights I go out walking
or for a long lonely drive
and I think how things might be different
if Phil Ochs was still alive

Notes: The song is not available on any recording, however Tom had made a demo in 2003 and kindly sent me an mp3. This is what Tom said about Phil:

“Seems every songwriter starts with Dylan...and then follows that path to where it leads. Eventually, it led to Ochs....whom I've always admired for his willingness to, as Frederick Douglass called it, "agitate agitate agitate".

When I heard Here's to the State of Mississippi, I thought, here's a guy with balls. He was singing about what everybody else was thinking, but afraid to say out loud. And he was saying it in such a way (not cloaked in Dylanesque metaphors) that there could be no doubt what you were hearing.

They don't make 'em like Ochs anymore. Closest we have nowadays in James McMurtry out of Texas.”