In the small side yard of Michael Ochs` home in Venice, Calif., rests the first tombstone of his brother Phil.
Phil ordered it himself, when he was 29, to use on the cover of his 1969
”Rehearsals for Retirement” album. It was a bit of black humor that turned out to be an early chapter in an increasingly bizarre and tragic story that ended April 9, 1976, when Phil hanged himself in the bathroom of his sister Sonny`s house in Far Rockaway, N.J.
Suffering from writer`s block, insecurity about his voice, and the lifelong effects of manic-depression, Ochs had slipped into a bleak world at the end-bleak enough that he is sometimes written off as one more folk singer who couldn`t handle not being Bob Dylan.
The one true element there is that Ochs, who would have turned 50 Wednesday, did want to be Bob Dylan. They used to pal around in the early `60s until one day, legend has it, Dylan asked Ochs what he thought of a new tune, ”Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window.”
Ochs told him he didn`t think it would be a hit. He was wrong, it turned out, but an offended Dylan kicked Ochs out of his limo. According to the most romantically tragic reading of history, that was kind of a symbolic start for Ochs` slow roll to the edge of the cliff.
But in the years since Ochs died, something else has happened. Rather than receding into a footnote of `60s folk song, Ochs has gained stature. He is now seen as an important topical songwriter with a great sense of humor and a gift for lyrics. In addition, he looks more and more like a real everyday person next to Dylan the myth.
”I think people are seeing past the other stuff to what Phil really accomplished,” Michael Ochs said. ”Which was extraordinary. He was the most energetic person I`ve ever known. When he was on, he wanted to do 25 things at once. And he did.”
There have been a couple of books on Phil`s life, none of which Michael thinks tells the whole story, and one bad low-budget movie. But that could change if Sean Penn ever gets a few free months.
Penn, who developed a fondness for Ochs and wrote liner notes to a mid-`
80s album of old Ochs demos, has worked sporadically on a movie about his life.
”Sean would be great,” Michael said. ”He`s really into Phil. Basically, it`s now a matter of his finding the time to put the project together.”
Meanwhile, Michael Ochs is planning a book someday, and Sonny Ochs has organized a series of memorial concerts for Phil. There is talk of a birthday anniversary show next year.
Phil, who attended Ohio State University, once described himself as a journalist who worked in the medium of song. Using simple chords and melodies in the sing-along tradition, Ochs wrote songs about the invasion of Cuba, the civil rights movement, and the struggle of workers.
”Here`s to the State of Mississippi” was a burningly sarcastic indictment of racial injustice, which he updated many years later into
”Here`s to the State of Richard Nixon.” Anti-war tunes like ”I Ain`t A-Marchin` Anymore” and the sarcastic ”Cops of the World” were launched by specific events and broadened into general warnings.
While his sympathies generally lay on the left, Ochs sometimes puzzled progressives with his willingness to point out weaknesses where he found them. ”Draft Dodger Rag” lampooned the whining and lying by which Americans try to evade military service.
By the time of ”Rehearsals for Retirement,” Ochs was more introspective, a redirection that began with perhaps his best album, the 1967 ”Pleasures of the Harbor.”
Reportedly persuaded by Dylan`s ”Blonde on Blonde” that he should write more than simple message songs, Ochs brought in lush arrangements and edged from social toward psychological commentary (”The Party,” or the bitterly beautiful and often overlooked ”I`ve Had Her”).
Musically, a lot of his later work stands, though some felt his focus was diluting and his wit drying up in topical songs like ”White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land.”
Maybe he agreed. Michael and Sonny Ochs say that in the last years, Phil seemed to feel he had lost touch, couldn`t write songs and just generally didn`t matter. If he couldn`t make a difference, why stick around?
Except he did. As they always say about smart people who die, he might have enjoyed looking around today. Probably would have written a song about it.
