Here comes Phil Ochs shovel on his shoulder
Trailing a hoe along the Ho Chi Minh trail
But the trail is on Bleeker Street
And Phil's on his uppers
It's the mid-nineteen seventies
And it ain't looking so good
For this man with a mission
And a man with a passion
When you run out of fashion
And it don't come crawling back
Here comes Phil Ochs,
Got a chip on his shoulder
And they can't cut his jacket to cover it up
When one war is over but ten are beginning
And the movement's gone missing
Because they all just moved away
Oh they moved into property,
They moved off into futures
Yeah, they moved into ads, and that's as sad as it can get
Chorus:
Run, run, run from Phil,
Phil's on a three day drunk
He's up on his high horse
Staggering and sauced
Run, run, run from Phil,
Phil's on a three day drunk
But he wasn't alone
when he stumbled off course
Here comes Phil Ochs, devil on his shoulder
Carrying his guitar and the weight of the world
But if there's space for the millionaire,
god there must be space for the troubadour
And while there's a space, there's always a chance out there
That a melody lingers, and we keep getting singers
Who've got more on their minds than the latest Dow Jones share...