In the early 1970s, when the Vietnam War was still raging and I was 16 years old, I attended a Phil Ochs concert in a cramped courtyard at Chicago’s Northeastern University.
In his black leather jacket, T-shirt and jeans, and his slick-backed ebony mane, movie star good looks, and defiant in-your-face smirking manner, Ochs was the coolest cat I had ever seen. He sang all the protest folk hymns of that time: "The Ballad of Joe Hill," "Draft Dodger Rag," and "I Ain’t Marching Anymore."
"It’s always the old to lead us to the war.
It’s always the young to fall.
Now look at all we’ve won with the saber and the gun.
Tell me is it worth it all?"
Folk singers were the vanguard of the antiwar movement and, as I came of age during my rebellious teen years, they became my heroes. Their songs were coursing through the American bloodstream, reverberating through rallies and sit-ins, in the parks and coffeehouses, and on mainstream radio. I recall listening to Tom Paxton sing the gut-wrenching "Wake Up Jimmy Newman." One soldier is trying to rouse his wounded roommate, only to realize he had died from his injuries.