Revisiting A&M Records No. 25
Phil Ochs: ‘Pleasures of the Harbor’ (November ‘67)
In hindsight there couldn’t have been a more sadly ironic song for this under-appreciated folkie to choose as an opening statement for the next phase of his career.
‘Cross My Heart’ presents a series of unfortunate incidents, don’t-it-always-seem-to-go musings that in the space of a quatrain shift from calm to stormy, growing to deforming. Take his view on dreams, for instance: they’re such ‘pretty pictures in the air’ until they ‘tumble in despair’ and start to bend, and by the end they’re nightmares.
Yet with each chorus Ochs sounds firmly resolved to battle back any encroaching darkness: ‘I’m gonna give all that I’ve got to give,’ he sings with increasing fortitude and optimism.
‘Cross my heart … and I hope to live.’
If you already know what became of the troubled troubadour within a decade of this A&M debut, surely you can hear the bittersweetness of those words without playing the record.
(If you don’t know his fate, that tale will be retold in time.)
A self-styled ‘singing journalist,’ Ochs often (if not exclusively) culled ideas from the era’s headlines to provoke poetic protest pieces, best exemplified by defiantly rousing proclamations like ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ and ‘Draft Dodger Rag.’
But by ‘67 he was in need of reinvention.
Abetted by his brother/manager Michael, he split from Elektra, where he’d cut a handful of very fine solo recordings, and took up residency at A&M, where he would create his most fascinating and enduring works.
Dylan went electric; Ochs went baroque.
So the pleasures of ‘Pleasures’ lie in its quasi-symphonic arrangements (cherry-topped by the wildly playful piano of Lincoln Mayorga) as much as any of its clever rhymes.
Think early Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman, both emerging contemporaries at this time, rather than comparing him to admiring rivals like Donovan and Dylan.
Regardless how willfully, at times experimentally florid this underrated gem is — it definitely counts as ‘Sgt. Pepper’ fallout, though that noticeable influence doesn’t negate its unique charms — what always shines most is Ochs’s captivating storytelling. These lyrics are not only some of the songwriter’s most scathing (particularly the caustic commentary ‘Outside of a Small Circle of Friends,’ deceptive Dixie jazz inspired by the blasé concern of Kitty Genovese’s neighbors as she was being stabbed to death), they’re also among his emotionally richest.
.
There’s ’Flower Lady,’ for starters, a paean to the lonely and unnoticed that conveys the same beautiful sorrow the Zombies conjured two years later with ‘A Rose for Emily’ on the impeccable ‘Odessey & Oracle,’ baroque-rock’s post-‘Pepper’ peak in the ‘60s. Fans of that record would be well-served to spend time with this one; the connections are eye- and ear-opening.
.
There’s ‘The Party,’ one of three eight-minute epics that eat up Side 2, which plays like a proto-‘Piano Man’ as Ochs recounts colorful guests at a swanky soirée: fire-breathing rebels, vacant trophy wives, chic cannibals, plus a zaftig, over-perfumed hostess who might be the main course, if I’m hearing correctly. Vividly captured, each character nonetheless leaves only fleeting impressions on the author, who at the end of each verse merely shrugs, then crawls ‘beneath the rug’ to retune his 88 keys.
There’s also the delicate arpeggios of ’I’ve Had Her,’ rueful melancholy recommended to Nick Drake fans as much as Nilsson neophytes. Same goes for the title track, inspired by the sea-weariness of John Ford’s gothically atmospheric ‘The Long Voyage Home’ (Ochs was a major movie buff) and enveloped in orchestrations simultaneously soothing and swelling. Also featuring a very young Warren Zevon on guitar.
.
And then there’s ’The Crucifixion,’ highly regarded by fans and musicologists and probably plenty of English professors for its creative conflation of Jesus and JFK. Most Ochs acolytes will tell you it was far more powerful live, stripped-down to its essence. I can’t authoritatively say, although such a version is included in the excellent posthumous compilation ‘Chords of Fame’ (‘76), which Michael Ochs curated in tribute.
.
Me? I like how insanely over-the-top and even occasionally electronic this studio take is, like Van Dyke Parks on bad acid. Sounds like Phil and his collaborators threw everything they could think of at that recording. The result is as fascinating as it is challenging.