Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

*

A reader (I think I know who he is) planted a link to this Phil Ochs performance in the comments section of last evening's post. I feel that the lyrics of this song are much more timely now than they were in the late '60s.



I was never a big fan of folk-type singers as a youth being as my predilection was for big powerful urban sounds, so people like Dylan, Neil Young, and others flew under my radar. But whenever someone refers me to a Phil Ochs lyric I come away ever-more impressed with his mind and somewhat disappointed that I was never able to connect with him at the same time a few of my high school pals did.

This song, unlike so many of the era, is not about "recreational" revolution or a vehicle for radical chic, but (to my ears, at least) a very impressionistic thought experiment of what it might be like in this country when a majority of disenfranchised people come to one clear mind about who is the real enemy of America: the parasite class and its vassals. The galactic levels of wealth accreted to these winner-take-alls is setting the stage not for another glorious 1,000-year reich, but for the onset of decadence along every axis of human endeavor. Their heirs will not inherit their drive for earning, investing, and stealing because they will already have plenty of free money in the vault. The parasite class cannot possibly keep a lid on their laissez-faire paradise if they don't even possess the skills to change a flat tire on the BMW. The tipping point---which nobody should believe will lead directly to a New Morning In America---will be defined by the congealing of a common awareness. This will be embodied in the emergence of a new story line about what has really been going on here since the 1970s; a plot that is Occam-simple and explains pretty much everything that has happened, from the repudiation of the social contract to the dissolution of American civic comity to the end of our illusion that anyone can be "middle class" if they work hard and play by Ronald Reagan's rules.

I don't necessarily believe that the parasite class will literally come to the end envisaged here by the lyrics of Phil Ochs (read them on the YouTube page where this video comes from), but I am certain that the metaphorical content is prophetic. Hopefully in my lifetime, but if not, then certainly by the time my offspring are writing blogs in order to forestall Sudoku and crossword puzzle hell. Not that I'm a big fan of flames and violence and the like, but rebirth and renaissance are welcome concepts.

The Ringing of Revolution, Phil Ochs (1966, from "Phil Ochs in Concert," Elektra Records [catalog number not available]), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.

Aside to AnarchistOpposition: if you are who I think you are, then I owe you a treat from the Lummox Rock files as soon as I can come up with a worthy surprise.