Standing In Your Memory (For Phil Ochs)

I made an accidental pilgrimage
To city streets you left behind
Found myself standing in your memory
Almost forty years before this time

When you walked proudly through the city that you loved
Those buildings high above, they used to guide you on your way
And maybe Im a stranger in a legendary town
But I walk hallowed ground and I still feel you here today

I took the subway down to Bleecker Street
Stood outside The Bitter End
You got your start inside these red brick walls
But you wont be coming back again

Too Many Martyrs and far too many dead,
Isnt that what you said? Somehow you let it be again
You became another tragedy, a casualty of war
What were we fighting for if you Aint Marching Anymore?

In your Rehearsals For Retirement
You said you died in sixty-eight
Kent and Chicago stole your soul away
To take your life theyd have to wait

Through years of silence when the madness raged
You couldnt fill a page, thought you had nothing left to say
And no one took an interest in a rebels dying words
But you were always heard and were still listening today

I hear your voice in every alleyway
Spilling out of passing cars
The new disciples of the Broadside years
The Chords of Fame in every bar

And time will always bring the tallest to their knees
But you live on in me, in every troubadour who dares to wage
A mighty protest with the beauty that remains
In ugly times of change
And tells the truth from every stage