07 June 2007

the days grow longer for smaller prizes, i feel a stranger to all surprises








I realized I hadn't started a post with a Phil Ochs song, so you get one today. Rehearsals for Retirement is one of my favorite albums. To me, Ochs lyrics rank up there with Dylan and Townes Van Zandt. Like Dylan, Ochs is known primarily for the topical songs he wrote in the early 60's, but by the late 60's (Pleasures of the Harbor, Rehearsals for Retirement) he had moved toward more poetic, less overtly political writing. Nevertheless, Rehearsals is a very political album; to a large extent, it's a response to the riots at the 68 Democratic Convention and Ochs' growing disillusionment with America and the 60's counterculture (Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated that same year). It's understandably a very cynical and dark album, but it also includes plenty of humor, and beauty in its desperation.

Rehearsal for Retirement

The days grow longer for smaller prizes
I feel a stranger to all surprises
You can have them I don't want them
I wear a different kind of garment
In my rehearsals for retirement

The lights are cold again they dance below me
I turn to old friends they do not know me
All but the beggar he remembers
I put a penny down for payment
In my rehearsals for retirement

Had I known the end would end in laughter
I'd tell my daughter it doesn't matter

The stage is tainted with empty voices
The ladies painted, they have no choices
I take my colors from the stable
They lie in tatters by the tournament
In my rehearsals for retirement

Where are the armies who killed a country
And turned a strong man into a baby
Now comes the rabble they are welcome
I wait in anger and amusement
In my rehearsals for retirement

Had I known the end would end in laughter
Still I'd tell my daughter that it doesn't matter

Farewell my own true love, farewell my fancy
Are you still owin' me love, though you failed me
But one last gesture for her pleasure
I'll paint your memory on the monument
In my rehearsals for retirement

1 comment:

Karen said...

I'm drawn to the photo of the yellow curtain. When I close my eyes and picture it, I hear the steady thrumming of insects in the middle of the summer, the sound of one of those days when it's so hot that the heat itself seems to have a throbbing, pulsating life of its own. I like how the bottom right hand corner beckons the viewer to look behind the curtain.