Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem

Subject: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Jul 20 - 09:58 PM

My vote for new national anthem (somebody can write verses naming the rest of the states)...

Listen here.

Lyrics are already in the Trad.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: EBarnacle
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 12:14 PM

According to Sonny Ochs, the states named were ones he had visited.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 03:54 PM

Ooh cool. But I'd like to list'm all for national anthem purposes.

Missing:

Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawai'i
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North & South Dakota
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

If that helps...

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Elmore
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 07:47 PM

Always liked this song. Always loved Pete Seeger, but he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 08:28 PM

Mrrzy, you would have liked the original version of The Good Reuben James, in which Woody Guthrie listed all the 100 or so crew who died when the ship went down.

But, no love for the District of Columbia? and Puerto Rico? Guam? American Samoa? don't they get to be part of the power & the glory?

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: EBarnacle
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 10:19 PM

The entry I put above, does not account for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut where he variously lived and visited. Even so, that's a lot of states to get into a chorus.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: GUEST,Jerome Clark
Date: 05 Jul 20 - 10:20 PM

I love this song, which grows deeper and deeper the more one listens to it. On first hearing it many years ago, I dismissed it as Phil Ochs's attempt to grab a chunk of "This Land Is Your Land" real estate.

Its title, by the way, is not "The Power and the Glory." It is "Power and the Glory," and the first word refers specifically to American power, of the kind the country fell into in the years after World War II, and the hubris (Ochs had the Vietnam War in mind) that flowed from it, to the tragic diminishment of the ideals that should have led the national experiment.

Ochs sings that it is not power that represents glory, but traditions of liberty, always worth preserving and treasuring. Power is passing, while liberty should be eternal.

This is Ochs's wisest, most moving, and lasting political song. It should be the national anthem, but I suppose there are those who would reject its sentiments as too radical. In fact, it couldn't be more American.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 12:42 AM

My sentiments exactly.

And yeah, I shoulda thought of Puerto Rico etc. Sorry, Aunt Carmen!

Subject: DT Corr: Power and the Glory (Phil Ochs)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 12:57 AM

Here are the lyrics from the Digital Tradition. Any corrections?

THE POWER AND THE GLORY (DT) (Phil Ochs) Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain This is a land full of power and glory Beauty that words cannot recall Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom Her story shall rest on us all From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new Texas and Ohio and the California shore Tell me, who could ask for more Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of her poor Only as free as the padlocked prison door Only as strong as our love for this land Only as tall as we stand Copyright Appleseed Music Recorded by Phil Ochs on All the News That's Fit To Sing @American @patriotic filename[ POWGLORY SOF

THE POWER AND THE GLORY (corrected) (Phil Ochs) Come on and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain CHORUS: Here is a land full of power and glory Beauty that words cannot recall Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom Her glory shall rest on us all From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new Texas and Ohio and the California shore Tell me, who could ask for more Yet she's only as rich as the poorest of the poor Only as free as the padlocked prison door Only as strong as our love for this land Only as tall as we stand (repeat first verse and chorus, and repeat "on us all" in last chrous) Copyright Appleseed Music Recorded by Phil Ochs on All the News That's Fit To Sing @American @patriotic filename[ POWGLORY SOF

4th verse of "The Power and the Glory":

Yet our land is still troubled by men who have to hate
They twist away our freedom and they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry
We can stop them if we try!

Heard from Fred Stollnitz - Fred says Phil Ochs wrote this verse, but it was not on the Phil Ochs recording.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 06:39 AM

Joe, the stanza that starts "This is a land full of power and glory" is used as a chorus, sung after each verse. And in the last line of the chorus, it's "glory", not "story".

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 08:32 AM

Some further, minor, corrections:

Song begins, "Come *on* and take a walk with me ...."

Chorus begins, "*Here* is a land ...."

Last line of chorus, there isn't any "Her", just starts with "Glory".

First line of last stanza, "her" should be "the".

The first stanza is sung again after the last stanza.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 08:43 AM

Aw man I like my mondegreen better! I have always heard the last line of the chorus as Her power shall rest on a song!

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 10:23 AM

(somebody can write verses naming the rest of the states)...

Nine states covered in the song already. To include the rest of the states, territories and DC would require five or six extra verses.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 10:30 AM

damn! Caught the submit button with my thumb ... again.

To continue ...

... This would give a good song a quality that is essential to any national anthem - that of being exceptionally boring.

DC

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 03:26 PM

Thanks for all the tips. I think I've got a good, corrected version now.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 11:03 PM

Albert Brooks' take on a new national anthem, 1972.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 12:07 PM

La Marseillaise, L'Abidjanaise, not boring...

Yeah. Didn't the Animaniacs do the states?

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 12:11 PM

Yes but with the capitals. Hmmm.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jul 20 - 04:06 PM

The one and only time I heard Theodore Bikel live,
he opened the show with this very song,
giving no introduction and no remarks,
letting it speak for itself.

And, like Mrrzy, I have a mondegreen, but a different one.
Probably to do with Bikel's accent, bless him.
I thought Bikel sang
"Her glory shall rest on her soul,"
because I didn't understand "us all."

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jul 20 - 05:33 AM

Sorry about the thread drift but more votes would go to America the beautiful or this land is your land.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Jul 20 - 08:41 AM

I would like this land is your land but it smacks of manifest destiny. If this land was made for anyone it was the now-exterminated native peoples.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Neil D
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 11:15 PM

Almost anything would be better than the current anthem. One of the worst written songs ever and very difficult to sing correctly.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 10:06 AM

And America the beautiful is unfair to the ugly ?

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 10:33 AM

I was scrolling down to the bottom of this to add my two cents and I see other titles have arisen so I'm not drifting completely off topic. I remember having more than one conversation about changing the national anthem with my mom, and she always wanted America, the Beautiful, mostly because it was easier to sing.

On the Wind Band Literature web site it discusses the poem's author Katherine Lee Bates in every way but saying the word lesbian as a professor of English literature at Wellesley College and the composer of the tune as Samuel Augustus Ward, a church organist from New Jersey.

I agree with my mother, the song is easier to sing, I'm glad a song written by a lesbian woman has always gotten such attention, but the two things working against it are the mentioned elements of god and pilgrims. I'm not fond of either of them. The "alabaster cities gleam" reminds me of the description Sinclair Lewis gave of the city of Zenith in the novel Babbitt. But whatever.

Except for Och's incomplete list of states (does that mean someone else is going to write more lyrics? The debate will NEVER end in that case!) his song should be in the running.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 11:30 AM

No, America the Beautiful is unfair to nonmonotheists.

Subject: RE: Phil Ochs' Power and Glory-new national anthem
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jul 20 - 08:51 PM

if the link works, it goes to the one recording in which
Phil Ochs includes that last verse.

"The Broadside Tapes," Phil Ochs

And here, the YouTube poster spells out
what he hears Phil Ochs singing:

But this land is still troubled by men who have to hate;
They twist away our freedom and twist away our fate.
Law is their weapon, and treason is their cry:
You can stop them if you try.