Ochs, Phil - Cops Of The World Lyrics

Now we don't leave the countries we invade and exploit "in a couple of years", now we stay forever.

"We'll find you a leader that you can elect. Those treaties we signed were a pain in the neck."

Yep, dozens of nations whose policies didn't align with USA's oligarch's banking/industrial/business interests etc. CIA overthrows the leaders through coups because they wanted to nationalize their resources for their people. Completely illegal but Banking and industrial interests wanted a biggest piece of their pie as possible, even if done by force and totally illegally.

Hundreds and thousands of its citizens "disappeared" or just outright killed through the CIA's newly installed dictator, for protesting against these illegal actions.

The highest decorated Marine, Major General Smedley Butler, saw what was really going on in the early 1900's as he was carrying out the orders of the oligarchs. His quote "War is a racket" sums his acknowledgement of this up.

I love my country, but not for these evil misdeeds of the oligarchs who actually own this country.

Underrated and brilliant. Thank you for posting.

sad but true

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
NO GIT-MO and TORTURE FOR JULIAN ! ! ! ! !

FUCK we need you, Phil, in 2019 ! !
Julian Assange's arrest = Cops of the World.

Yes, it's a great song, and this isn't meant as a knock against Phil Ochs, but is his guitar in tune? Listen when he strums between choruses.

When I read Och's biography a few years back ("There But for Fortune"), the book noted that some considered Ochs a weak guitar player and cited this as the reason that Danny Kalb provided a second guitar on Och's debut album.

I don't think it's true he was a weak guitarist. He was ok, not excellent but he got by. There were/are famous weaker guitar players. Listen to the finger picking of "Changes". Not half shabby. No Toby Walker but not half shabby. Although Phil, knocking himself sometimes, (it seems), probably thought he wasn't a very good guitarist. I don't know for sure how he felt about his playing, but from his comments I've read it seems he was maybe a little unsure about his song writing/songs.
I once ran across some ass ____ on YT who was describing Phil Och's playing technique like he's playing with flippers. I think Phil's spot-on observations and views infuriated certain people so they just tried to smear Phil any way they could.

Lyrics of a fearless genius. Thanks Phil.

All this music needs a second listen because I can't find songs with this impact today.

Bring this one back. Nothing has changed.

Listening to phil ochs in age of trump

amazing song, wow! Thank you for posting the lyrics.

Shit song.

I cant believe how relevant this song is some 50 years later. Man- was he in tune with the times. Shame he had to kill himself. I knew someone who ran into him in a bar about a week before he took his life- He said Ochs was down because he felt he couldn't write anymore. My friend told him that he was great- but he was already passed the point of depression. What a loss.

Dedicated to the DSA.

This goes out to you neocons.

And don't leave out the neoliberals either because they support the same wars as the neocons.

Here we go again

This should be the U.S. national anthem.

A tuned guitar is a suggestion...

Who's listening to the guitar?

He’s dead, Albert. He can’t tune his guitar now

No one said it simpler nor better

A great American Hero and the government pretty much tried to kill him or at least shut him up

My sexual orientation: Phil saying "boys"

What does this mean?

violate my sovereignty zaddy

What a shame that such a talent had to die so young

The best do

The good die young and the assholes live forever.

"We've done it before so why all the shock?"

Perhaps the most cynical view of America ever put to lyrical verse. Civilization really does have enemies, but this perspective should be pondered to remind us to exercise caution in our defense of it.

you're a cop aren't you

A very fitting song for this 4th of July...To put things in perspective.  Peace.

Great Phil tune, probably even more true today. Be sure to check out the Facebook group Celebrating Phil Ochs' 75th Birthday and the Celebrating Phil Ochs website.

I love this song and I'm a right wing guy.

Grady Mayfield Doesn't solve the Capitalist issues.

Peyer Grace there is no capitalist issue

Grady Mayfield There's a huge Capitalist issue, stop ignoring it. Should I name a few of the Capitalist, Sorrors, J.P. Morgan, Dick Chiney, also what is it alot of them like doing besides killing worker unions and lobbying for war. No Capitalist issues, my ass.

People like Nancy Benefiel are why the left has such a bad rep, also yeah wages haven't risen with inflation since the seventies, but companies whose profits have increased well ahead of inflation claim they cannot afford to offer wage rises so I would say there is a bit of a capitalist issue. Anarchism is a fantasy, total freedom for all means slavery for most.

We had Revolutionary Catalonia, Free Territory of Ukraine but now Anarchism lives on in Rojava!

shared on facebook

cocks of the world

sadly still as relevant today. about to post on facebook.

want to see you live so ahead of your time

God, how far ahead of the times was he!!

+taxisteve929 It was the same "times". This was written for another war for profit, the Vietnam war. The same fear mongering, just different third world country. We've since expanded our warring though, one venue just isn't enough these days and our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq has exceeded the time we spent in Vietnam with no end in sight. Of course, that's the whole reason for these "forever wars"; they can go on for decades

The big discoveries of the Vietnam war. Never ending war makes the most money. Stop the draft and you eliminate 90% of war protestors, because like it or not, when they ended the draft, 90% went home, knowing THEY wouldn't have to go. Screw the kid up the street. Shame.

Really amazing in context of McCain's latest saying he wouldn't be waiting for Nigeria to ask us in...yeah. Unwanted intrusion into internal affairs of another nation is called...invasion? War? 

Knock off the Dylan hating, the whole Judas concept is just ridiculous. Phil himself supported Dylan's going electric, saying, "To cater to an audience's taste is not to respect them, and if the audience doesn't understand that, they don't deserve respect."

It's not Dylan who's the bad guy. It's all of you hating on a superstar who couldn't care less when your energy could better be devoted to constructive purposes. To quote Phil, "in such ugly times, the true protest is beauty."

And, I must add, this is an absolutely awesome song and someone oughta blast it in Crimea where a grassroots nationalist liberation movement has been hijacked by colonial powers and become a game of imperialist tug-of-war.

Ochs was better than him, that's why he called Phil a 'journalist', because he knew that only too well. Fuck Dylan.

+Paul Lavan that's way way too gratuitously mean-spirited for me to even dignify with an answer. Btw, I'm a fan of Dylan AND Ochs!

Who is Dylan?

Still completely relevant 47 years later!

Bob Dylan had no need to get so political. Why alienate some of your audience by hitting them over the head with your personal political views? I like Phil Ochs, but I knew what I was getting when I chose to listen to him.

"And we'll find you a leader that you can't elect"...mis-entered. Should be "..that you can elect..."

Can't is correct. This is a satire. The US has intervened in other countries' politics, usually covertly, through prop. and similar methods to sway its people into voting for a leader it deemed reflected its interests and values. In some instances, they'd appoint someone without the consent of that nation. This was usually done in countries with tyrannical governments, but is it our job to police? The bigger picture: 'America to the Rescue' doesn't make us right. We're not always the good guys.

Dylan couldn't carry Phil Och's guitar. He was Och's Lite ...

Listening to this is like watching a Hicks routine. It's surreal.

I think it always pertained to the US, it's just the older we get, the more we realize it.

The older this song gets, the more it pertains to the US!

Excuse me. It pertained to the U.S. when it was written!

When we played this song back in the 60's I don't think we ever dreamed that it would be going on some 50 years later, and that the powers that be (0f both parties) would be so open about it being the policy of the government... *sigh*

No. That's the point. We force our method of government on other countries that sometimes don't want it, and we often instill leaders for those countries rather than having their citizens elect them. (See: Hamid Karzai)

Sadly, that's why he's been largely forgotten.

Shouldn't the lyrics be :-
".... we'll find you a leader that you CAN elect" ?

This IS and was, will always be God showing us to ourselves.

Yeah, why every Ochs video becomes a kick Dylan fest is beyond me. I like them both.

do you know Ochs and Dylan were good friends and niether was upset about what the other was. don't assume things about people you don't know Dave

That is sort of sad, though. Because it means things haven't changed from those days.

Gone these many years but his songs are as appropriate today as they were when he wrote them. RIP.

Phil was the person Dylan still pretends to be.

Wish you all could have been there to hear him live at the Gaslight in NYC circa '62-'63.
What he said had nothing to do with -blowing in the wind- he was topical and REAL.

Dylan was a sellout. he was there for the ride.

Sad that it's still so true today as it was then. I used this song and Draft Dodger for a political song report way back in HS where we analyzed some old songs. It went along with the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, and a similar program they were doing... picking out the hidden messages in songs. I fell in love with his stuff after I found him.

Killer song

hi frank, sorry pal, i didnt mean to praise ochs at the expense of anybody else, but i know what you mean, I love Woodys stuff as well, i have always thought people like phil ochs and tom paxton were the real heirs of guthries legacy, dont get me wrong! I'm a huge bob dylan fan, but phils music always meant so much more to me. All the very best to you and yours Frank.

Don't undersell Woody Guthrie. But yeah, Ochs is a national treasure.

Phil's songs remain relevant because we have yet to address the issues he sang about nearly five decades ago with such precesion and passion!

This has suddenly become very relevant again.

what could the cowardly modern country possibly say to phil ochs ? they'd try to jump into a fight with him because they'd feel so embarrassed in their patheticness

Love this guy, but who remembers him anymore? That's the sad thing.

Sunday KPFA played this yesterday

will somebody please post Ten Cents a Couple

@dvictorbrown Dylan wasn't smart enough to pull it off even if he wanted to. Ochs was a much better artist, but Dylan had self-promotion down pat.

Dylan wishes he had the guts that Ochs did to risk carreer for saying something outright and meaningful.

Victor Brown But Dylan did Masters of War.

Mercurial Pierrot Sorry, didn't see your comment, Brother. I concur, Dr.

Dylan's Still touring and Och's was harassed by the FBI until he killed himself. There's a reason other people were afraid to be as brave as he was.

Ochs was the greatest political songwriter of them all, way ahead of anybody else in my opinion.