Jen Cass: Music
Standing In Your Memory (For Phil Ochs)
I made an accidental pilgrimage
To city streets you left behind
Found myself standing in your memory
Almost…forty years before this time
When you walked proudly through the city that you loved
Those buildings high above, they used to guide you on your way
And maybe…I’m a stranger in a legendary town
But I walk hallowed ground and I still feel you here today
I took the subway down to Bleecker Street
Stood outside The Bitter End
You got your start inside these red brick walls
But you won’t be coming back again
Too Many Martyrs and far too many dead,
Isn’t that what you said? Somehow you let it be again
You became…another tragedy, a casualty of war
What were we fighting for if you Ain’t Marching Anymore?
In your Rehearsals For Retirement
You said you died in sixty-eight
Kent and Chicago stole your soul away
To take your life they’d have to wait
Through years of silence when the madness raged
You couldn’t fill a page, thought you had nothing left to say
And no one…took an interest in a rebel’s dying words
But you were always heard and we’re still listening today
I hear your voice in every alleyway
Spilling out of passing cars
The new disciples of the Broadside years
The Chords of Fame in every bar
And time will always bring the tallest to their knees
But you live on in me, in every troubadour who dares to wage
A mighty protest with the beauty that remains, in ugly times of change
And tells the truth from every stage