"I Ain't Marching Anymore" - Phil Ochs, Where have all the protest singers gone ...

I became aware of Phil Ochs in the early '70s but he faded from my memory long ago. What brought him back to mind was reading the bio of Jim Glover, a member here at OpEdNews:

Jim Glover attended Ohio State University, where he met Phil Ochs in the fall of 1960^[1] and introduced Ochs to folk music, leftist politics, and taught him how to play guitar.^[2][3] Glover introduced Ochs to the music of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and The Weavers.

Phil Ochs was a great protest singer who wrote consciousness-awakening songs and played them with good guitar and sang them with a really neat voice. He knew how to make the kind of penetrating protest points we used to hear from protest singers so clearly in the past, word it so well, and put it to music.

I would guess a few of you here might remember him, but probably not most. We could use a singer-songwriter like Phil Ochs again today. Where have all the protest singers gone ...

To Jim Glover, thank you for introducing Phil Ochs to folk music, leftist politics and teaching him to play guitar.

Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marching Anymore."

"I Ain't Marching Anymore"

Oh, I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British wars
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't a-marching anymore

Oh I killed my share of Injuns in a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men a-lying
I saw many more a-dying
But I ain't a-marching anymore

It's always the old to lead us to the wars
Always the young to fall
Now look at what we've won with a saber and a gun
Tell me is it worth it all?

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes, I even killed my brothers
And so many others
But I ain't a-marching anymore

For I marched to the battle of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't a-marching anymore

It's always the old to lead us to the wars
Always the young to fall
Now look at what we've won with a saber and a gun
Tell me is it worth it all?

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
But I saw the cities burnin'
And I knew that I was learnin'
That I ain't a-marching anymore

Now the labor leader's screamin' when they closed the missile plant
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore
Call it peace or call it treason
Call it love or call it reason
But I ain't a-marching anymore
I ain't a-marching anymore

(Article changed on March 26, 2019 at 14:59)