The Village & Phil Ochs

Ochs’ Lost Album

The Story and the Lyrics
as told by Alex Ebrahimi

“While I was out there in Los Angeles, it felt like I was back in New York because one by one, all the people I knew started to show up.”

- Ochs interview with Folkways in 1968

“On the first day of summer 1975 Phil Ochs was murdered in The Chelsea Hotel room 714 by John Train.”

- Ochs in 1975

The Story from ’68 to ’75:

The “Exodus” of ‘68 for California that Ochs talked about in the Folkways interview was as absurdly massive as The Gold Rush of ’49 and as massively absurd as The Gold Rush of Charlie Chaplin. Ochs’ “exodus” for California branched out from the other artists adding rock bands to their music, when he didn’t: instead adding orchestration. Fortune was spelled in the shade of the Hollywood sign; but what he found instead was the fulfillment of the myth he later sang about in “Jim Dean of Indiana”. Both Dean’s myth and Ochs’ were grown out of the grain of The Midwest: Dean out of Indiana, Ochs out of Ohio. Both myths were fulfilled out in California: Dean in his silver Porsche, Ochs in his gold lamé suit. The two myths branched out the way Ochs sang about The Winslows leaving for Indiana, when Dean didn’t: instead leaving for the Grapevine Highway. Ochs found himself less in the lucrative shade of the Hollywood sign than he was in the shadow of Dean’s myth. California was a demise for both; but Dean met his while driving a silver symbol of his own stardom, Ochs met his while searching for the promise to be fulfilled by The Gold Rush of ’68. Two years later, Carnegie Hall found itself searching for the troubadour standing somewhere behind what looked like an Elvis Impersonator on the stage, petrified to find instead a rock band, the ultimate symbol of two-facedom, standing behind what must be an Ochs imposter as iridescent as the ancient forests in those western deserts that petrified as iridescently, as anciently as a gold lamé suit in the 70’s.

Fast forward a couple trips around the world and that fateful stop in Africa where the scene of Christ and the two thieves was revisioned on the beach, to a couple comeback stories from Dylan and The Band getting back together to The Beatles when they were almost getting the band back together, to the liberation also called the fall of Saigon ending the war in Vietnam also called the conflict overseas… finally leading to that first fateful day of summer in The Chelsea Hotel when Ochs, whether fallen to the floor drunk or liberated by drink, conflicted in his conscience or at war with his mind, set out on his most fateful exodus, fateful as the exodus of another great myth-maker, Gauguin, only instead of branching out from the civilized, technological world, finding Paradise in Tahiti, the place farthest from any land mass on the planet, Ochs branched out from himself, towards a place farther than the farthest place from land, farther than the middle of the ocean, a place farthest from shores of sanity, finding Paradise in Hell: John Train (as talked about in the interview, as sung about in the lost album “Duel in the Sun”).

No matter how maddening the exodus of ’68 was, the diagnosis “bipolar” was not spelled in the shade of the Hollywood sign. Dylan was not bipolar for going electric. The Beatles were not bipolar for going symphonic. Just cause it happened lucratively doesn’t mean it happened unnaturally. Those decisions were the natural progressions Ochs talked about in the Folkways interview. Unnatural was “the thousandth psychedelic rock band”. Both unnatural and unlucrative was all the branching out that shattered Ochs. And it’s easy to blame what shattered him on the diagnosis. As easy as looking at petrified wood and calling it stone. Gauguin has a quote that goes: “Is there one who recognizes me any longer?” Years after the mass exodus for California where all his friends found crowns of gold and where he found a crown of thorns, in late 1975, when Ochs was finally returning from hell and the devil called John Train, he had a new album written called “Duel in the Sun”, with a song in it called “Alone”, where instead of asking who recognizes him, he laments the chance of it happening:

Oh, I can’t go outside today

I might meet someone I know

They might stop and say “Hello”

“How are you”

You know,

I just don’t know

I don’t know

Oh, I can’t stay inside today

I might hear the ring of the phone

I might see myself

Alone

Alone

Where was he left to go then? Words are too rough to try to name the place that’s left. As rough as trying to answer life’s largest question that’s only three letters long: “why”. As rough as imagining what could’ve happened in The Chelsea Hotel. Or what could’ve happened in his sister’s house. There’s a line in Tom Paxton’s song “Phil” that goes: “Christ, alone knows what was the final blow”. But Paxton’s deferring to Christ instead of Ochs because the only scripture that chronicles “the final blow”, as branched out as the Bible with both its Chelsea Hotel testament and Far Rockaway testament, has been lost to the public since his crucifixion: “Duel in the Sun”.

It’s hard to eulogize a man who never died. As hard as killing off Joe Hill. In a live version of “Crucifixion”, Ochs introduced the song by saying the greatest artistic contribution this country has made is the art of yer crucifixion. The song is as prescient as “There but for Fortune” if not more in its artistic and political implications. Only, of the two, “Crucifixion” didn’t make it on The Billboard Chart, it was the death sentence for the man who wrote it. Let this be an evening of resurrection.

The Lyrics from Ochs’ Lost Album:

Street Actor

G D C (D/F#)

Baby, can you spare that dog?

G D C (D/F#)

Or your fine mink coat?

G D C

Or the necklace around your throat?

G D/F#

If you will, I’ll spare mine.

Em G

I may not look like much, but I owned the world

D Em

And I gave it all away.

G

Now I’m an actor on the street

D Em

And I do it for no pay.

Driver, can you spare your car?

Bartender, can you spare your bar?

Rubies, can you spare your star?

If you will, I’ll spare mine.

Hobo, can you spare some soap?

Dealer, can you spare some dope?

Mr. Society, spare some rope.

If you will, I’ll spare mine.

I may not look like much, but I owned the world

And I gave it all away.

Now I’m an actor on the street

And I do it for no pay.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

Father, can you spare some time?

Mr. Poet, can you spare a rhyme?

If you will, I’ll spare mine.

Lady, can you spare some luck?

Hooker, can you spare a buck?

Teamster, can you spare a truck?

If you will, I’ll spare mine.

I may not look like much, but I owned the world

And I gave it all away.

Now I’m an actor on the street

And I do it for no pay.

Alone

G D G

Oh, I can’t go outside today

G Bm C

I might meet someone I know

Em Am D G

They might stop and say “Hello,

G Em

how are you?”

C F

You know, I just don’t know

D

I don’t know

G D G

Oh, I can’t stay inside today

G Bm C

I might hear the ring of the phone

Em Am D G

…

Em Am C F

I might see myself alone

D

Alone

G D G

Oh, I can’t go outside today

G Bm C

I might meet someone I know

Em Am D G

They might stop and say “Hello”

Em Am C F D

I would turn and have to go

The Ballad of John Train

C F Em

Phil Ochs checked into the Chelsea Hotel,

G C

There was blood on his clothes, and they were dirty.

I could see by his face he was not feelin’ well,

He’d been to one too many parties.

He walked in the lobby, a picture of doom,

It was plain to see he’d been a-drinkin’.

I had to follow him up to his room,

To find out what he was thinkin’.

F G C

“Train, Train, Train!”

F C

From the outlaw in his brain.

G C

Now he sings the same refrain.

He walked in his room and he fell to the floor,

Hanging in his hangover.

Now the act from the stage he plays on the street,

Handing out piles of money.

His audience now is the bums that he meets -

Is he a phony or funny?