Day 16
TODAY'S SONG:
"Love Me, I'm a Liberal" by Phil Ochs
There
is a They Might Be Giants song called “The Day” which begins with
the lyric, “The day Marvin Gaye and Phil Ochs got married...”
This led me to ask my mom who Marvin Gaye and Phil Ochs were. She
didn't have much to say on Marvin, but she had been a big Phil Ochs
fan back in the day. She told me that it had been especially tragic
when he had committed suicide, and recalled one of his songs which
had the lyric, “Cross my heart and hope to live.”
I
didn't know anything about his style or politics until years later
when I was digging deeper into the '60s folk scene. It's been said a
lot, but I like how Phil Ochs songs are kind of like singing the
words of the newspaper of the day. I really like political music.
I've got a lot of strong political beliefs, but I've never been able
to solidly put that into my songs.
I
remember one college night where a couple of my friends were
discussing how much they hated when bands tried to get political and
how music was just supposed to be fun. I never got that perspective
at all. Music is way more important than that. As far as I'm
concerned, a strong political statement can vastly increase the power
of a song. It's just incredibly hard to do it effectively. And you
have to make sure you really know what you're talking about, or
you'll come off sounding like a doofus.
Here's
the first version of this song that I heard, by Jello Biafra of The
Dead Kennedys, updated for the 1990s.
And
here's my totally apolitical song that I wrote in the bathroom. The recording is from Nietzsche's, where I played a show tonight with Sonny Baker. Also heard on this recording is Nietzsche's Open Mic host, Josh Gage, who did the sound recording/held my cell phone. Take it away, toys!
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