Bound for Glory Redux 
Ochs was part of a tradition whose guiding light was Woody Guthrie, a generation older than Ochs. By the 1960s, when Ochs did most of his recordings, Guthrie was incapacitated by Huntington's corea. Ochs, like Bob Dylan, wrote a song for him, showing his appreciation. That song is "Bound for Glory"
To honor Phil Ochs, I have taken that song and created a new version, one meant to honor Ochs himself:
He sang all over this green and growing land,
From the New York island to the California sand.
He saw all the people that needed to be seen,
Planted all the grass where it needed to be green.
And now he's bound for a glory all his own,
And now he is bound for glory
He wrote and he sang and he rode into our hearts,
And he kept on going though he never made the charts.
He said all the words that needed to be said;
He fed all the hungry souls that needed to be fed.
.
(chorus)
He sang in our streets and he sang in our halls,
And he was always there when the people gave a call.
He did all the jobs that needed to be done;
He always stood his ground when a smaller man would run.
(chorus)
And its There but for Fortune wrote the sixties balladeer
And I'm Going to Say It Now, he wanted us to hear.
And the rising of the people will be sung about again;
And those Too Many Martyrs live on through the power of his pen.
(chorus)
Now they sing out his praises on every distant shore
But so few remember what he was fighting for.
Oh why sing the songs and forget about the aim?
He wrote them for a reason, why not sing them for the same.
(chorus)
KEYWORDS: Phil Ochs, activism, song, woody guthrie
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