Not really. They both have fairly specific meanings, which are separate and distinct from one another, and you have given every indication that you don't know those meanings. Even if I agreed with your assessment, being a socialist is not in any way contradictory to a love of rock and roll.
I never said a socialist couldn't love rock and roll. I said rock and roll could never have arisen in a socialist society. That is very different. As to whether there are gradations of socialism and Communism in the societies which have adopted those modes, we shall have to disagree. I'm good with that, without feeling I have to suggest you don't know what you're talking about.
I can agree to disagree, too, but that's really not the issue at hand here. The point is, you used the word "socialist" but then described communism. What other conclusion are we supposed to draw but that you don't know the difference?
Retirement is probably my favorite Ochs album. For a time it was the rarest of Phil's albums as it was deleted from the catalog within a year. The title is appropriate as he believed he was done. He felt he had seen America die in Chicago. Phil started drinking. He was starting to lose his grip. He showed up at a unannounced at a Hollywood acquaintance's party one night insisting that he play the album. The host didn't want to be rude, but these were not Phil's crowd. Drunk Phil insisted and put the record on the stereo. Seconds later all the power went out(the host pulled the breaker), and the host basically said "How strange. I guess you can't play your record". Phil left. As to the album, the first thing is that Larry Marks was not interested in doing a third album with Phil, as he felt that he had done everything with Phil that he could, and he was moving into scoring films. But Phil never took no for an answer, and he browbeat Marks until he agreed to do one last album. The songs. Pretty Smart on My Part- Phil takes the part of homicidal paranoid who sees threats and danger lurking in everyone who is not himself. The Doll House- Similar to Pleasures Of The Harbor in the story of an evening at a brothel. Phil brings along Dylan for the ride. I wonder what Dylan thought of it. I Kill Therefore I Am- The "us" vs "them" policeman who hates hippies, blacks and foreigners. A "Bircher with a badge". Still relevant today. William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park and Escapes Unscathed- Phil casts himself as Yeats as he describes his experiences at the Democratic convention. Then after a beat or so he follows this beautiful ballad with the unannounced hidden track Where Were You In Chicago which harkens back to Love Me I'm A Liberal with the last lines: "Where were you in Chicago when the fight was being fought Oh where were you in Chicago cause I was in Detroit" A slap at those he expected to be there. His new best friend, ex-pat Brit Andy Wickham who cared little for the causes Phil stood for dismissed the entire song over the poetic license of "the dark was turning, turning" with a flippant "Darkness does not turn it falls". My Life- Phil looks back at his life expecting his metaphorical death. The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns- The old Phil shows up with this memorable tale of the Scorpion a nuclear sub lost at sea with all hands. Much more poetic than his earlier The Thresher, he again turns it into a metaphor of his own death and the theme of drowning is back. The World Began in Eden But Ended in Los Angeles- He again explains his move to LA. Doesn't Lenny Live Here Anymore- A tribute to Lenny Bruce. This one actually makes me cry. A fan is searching for his idol not realizing he is gone. "And the haggard ex lover of a long time loser stands dejectedly by the door Doesn't Lenny live here any more? Are you SURE?" Another Age- Almost a rock song. He rejects the election of Nixon, deeming it a coup and pledging to stand against the flag if this is what the flag stood for. Again his reaction to Chicago, the doubling down on Viet Nam, and the dismissal of the young and their opinions. "If that was an election, I'm a Viet Cong So I pledge allegiance against the flag And the flaw for which it stands I'll raze it if I can" Rehearsals for Retirement- Phil finishes with another metaphor of his death. Once again one of his most beautiful ballads, and this time he considers his legacy. "Had I known the end would end in laughter I tell my daughter it doesn't matter" He had the tombstone made for the cover, Phil Ochs (American) Born: El Paso Texas 1940 Died: Chicago 1968 Next we will look at the misnamed "Greatest Hits" His last studio album.
You can draw any conclusion you like, it doesn't mean it's right. A country whose means of production are owned by the state - that is what socialism is and Sweden was never that, even in the 70's - is highly unlikely to produce the kind of record industry that birthed rock and roll. Also, officially sanctioned art, i.e., art which would tend to receive state support and be heard on the airwaves, is unlikely to be critical of the state and would IMO resemble the social realist art of the Soviet era. I am not saying socialists don't produce art and many of the folkie crowd in the 50's came from a labour or academic background, but I'm pretty sure only a capitalist system could ever have, i) birthed, and ii) commercialized, rock and roll and the pop musics which came before it. Folk, also, except for a brief period in the 50's and early 60's, never caught on big with the public. That's surely why Bob Dylan distanced himself from it, and its politics, fairly early. He was freewheelin', like the country whose product he is.
Interesting. I've never heard this record, and will have to try to find it. The politics, as you describe them, are of complete uninterest to me, but I never liked Ochs for that reason anyway. I liked his melodies, voice and guitar playing. That's reason enough to like an artist. In retrospect but probably also at the time, putting out an album like that, with that cover, was surely commercial suicide. It must have presaged the personal difficulties which beset him increasingly in the 70's. If anyone here, I'd guess maybe 6 people are reading and interested, hasn't seen the biographical film done of Ochs some years ago, it is an absolute must. It is a pity that something so good is so little known. It gives a full picture of him, and the interviews with his surviving family are very interesting and revealing. My take is, the guy was way too sensitive for the music biz or probably any biz. He couldn't or would't negotiate the twists and turns necessary to sustain a long-term career. There were artists as earnest and committed, to use a 60's term, as he. Joan Baez was one, but she was able to grow and build a long-lasting career where he couldn't. I wish Bob Dylan one day would write or record about Phil Ochs. He has the intelligence and shared background to understand him. Maybe one day. Meanwhile, RIP Phil Ochs. You were great artist and departed much too soon.
His manic depression/bi-polar disorder that he had inherited from his father was becoming manifest. Up until now it was sometimes a boon as he wrote song after song, but the crashes were getting hard. He would go on a manic high and he was unstoppable and invulnerable, then would plunge into blackness so bad he couldn't get out of bed. Little wonder he thought he was dying. These swings only got worse. Add to that the dichotomy that was Phil. He was a socialist and a right winger, a country lover of rock and roll. He loved and hated Dylan. As Kris Kristofferson once wrote he was a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction. Andy Wickham was a British aristocracy conservative(think Margaret Thatcher), and the fact that he was such fast friends with him made some of his friends wonder. Most of them couldn't stand him. He wasn't sensitive, he laughed at his critics. If anything he remained naïve. He always expected that all of his albums would eventually sell big and he would be a star.
Well, that's a good analysis, but I think the rejection did hurt him. As Dylan's did. You need to see the film, if you haven't..
I'm reading and interested, but only in hearing/talking about Ochs, not interested when the thread goes off topic. I assume you're talking about the documentary done a couple of years ago, but there actually was an attempt at a biographical film once. It was a small budget production, Sunny Ochs brought it along to a Phil Ochs Song Night I attended a few years ago. It was flat out horrible. I remember hearing somewhere along the line, maybe there, that Sean Penn had bought movie rights to do a film on Ochs and when he was younger he could have pulled off the part himself (I for one think Penn is a good actor), but he's too old now.
Yes that is true. Penn is a huge Phil Ochs fan, but between finding backing and his ongoing career he never was able to do it, and as you said he just got too old. I was in the same boat, as at one time I started writing a one man show about Phil set as a Concert. The first act was the early years, the second covering the album trilogy and Chicago, with the last act covering the Gunfight, his fight to get it released and his descent into madness as John Butler Train. The show would end with Phil hanging from a bannister with Phil's Rehearsals playing over the silhouette. OK it was an ambition that never really went far beyond the outline and a few monologues. But I aged out as well and gave up the plan. If you are wondering how I would have sounded, I one time was talking to Jim Glover and said I sometimes wished I could hear on the phone "Ochs here. What's happening?" in my Phil voice. Glover's head snapped and he looked at me and said "Are you SURE you never talked to Phil??" If I hadn't been working a full time job I think I could have pulled it off.
I note that of my previous Album threads Bob Seger only went 14 pages and Glen Campbell 17(with 63 albums). We are almost at 11 now with a lot more than 6 participating(TY all)
That does not accord with the standard dictionary definition of the term. Obviously, you have a different understanding of socialism from the Wall Street Journal, which describes Sweden's economy in the 1970s as socialist, an economy from which the highly commercially successful ABBA emerged. Like other Swedish muscians, ABBA benefited from state support, yet their music is totally non-political, in fact often espousing traditionalist ideals. Not sure what your point is here.
If a Gort or Steve thinks so, I will, but not otherwise. Threads have a natural elasticity. Phil was nothing if not political, and would have loved this discussion, IMO. It is within the tradition of talking about him. If you don't like the discussion, don't read it.
If you are bored, don't read here. I (as one poster) don't owe it to you to be non-boring, sorry. If you wish non-boring stuff, post it, by all means...
No, that's what communism is. Not only are they two different things, but in their time socialists and communists hated one another. Socialism is characterized by "social ownership", which can mean several different things, but not state ownership. More to the point, the only way I can think of in which capitalism had a direct effect on the evolution of rock and roll was that it made it easy for the music business to cheat an awful lot of very talented musicians out of a lot of money. If anything, that probably hindered the development of the genre rather than helping it.
