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Phil Ochs, Chicago, and Rehearsals For Retirement: “This here is the death of the American”

Abigail Devoe | September 24, 2025



“Where were you in Chicago? Cause I was in Detroit!”

Welcome (or welcome back) to Vinyl Monday! This is my series where I give the who/what/when/where/why and how I feel about classic albums in my collection. My thoughts on Phil Ochs’s folk music swan song, Rehearsals For Retirement (released 1969.) Subscribe for more Vinyl Monday!

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Timestamps:

intro – 0:00
art/packaging/personnel – 1:37
American politics and Phil – 3:39
meet the Yippies – 11:33
1968 – 13:13
Chicago – 15:35
the aftermath – 21:53
Rehearsals For Retirement – 23:37
thanks for watching! – 53:26

Music:
Intro Music: Yeah Yeah Yeah (Long) by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…) Artist: http://audionautix.com/
Outtro Music: Ticket To Nowhere Man by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…) Artist: http://audionautix.com/
Vinyl Monday logo by Callum: https://www.youtube.com/@clynaack

#vinyl #vinylcommunity #philochs

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Written by Abigail Devoe

Comments

This post currently has 37 comments.

  1. @happening45

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    A brave and very thoughtfully written and constructed video. I love the fact that you explored our current fractured times by looking back to a similarly dark period in recent history through reviewing this beautiful but haunting album. I feel you walked a very thin tightrope very skilfully.

  2. @susansours2812

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Not unusual – Phil is still teaching me – I looked up the lyrics for the Doll House and I recognized a name I had not seen in ages So an Ibsen play is now on my reading list. 🤓

  3. @susansours2812

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Thank you Abigail- I just re-played this episode – cannot get enough of Phil. Your commentary was insightful and piecing the timeline together helped my memory a lot. I have been listening to him since 1965. I face my own disillusionment in 1970 – being tear gassed in Watertowrr Park. I decided that psychedelics were safer so I transitioned from Phil to the Mothers.

    But Phil stayed in my heart to the point that at 75 I joined a recent No Kings protest. When someone like Phil affects your thinking, it stays with you. I saw in one of his interviews, where Phil said, "They're not listening."… And they're still not listening – so sad.. we are not done fighting, Phil and we need beacons of hope like him, more than ever.

  10. @russellbrown5065

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Thanks so much for spotlighting my all-time favorite LP! As you can see, the relative few who know of Ochs feel an almost spiritual kinship with him. This album changed the way I look at the world, and the way I see my purpose in it.

    Phil went to Chicago in 1968 in the service of justice. He went to Chicago to perform a patriotic duty of protest against the immoral and unnecessary quagmire that was the Vietnam War; to demand that the views of his generation be recognized in the Democratic Party platform, and in the choice of their presidential nominee. Who could possibly oppose such a righteous, patriotic son of America?

    Everything that Ochs was ever taught to believe about America was betrayed on a hot summer night under a shroud of tear gas. Afterwards, Phil no longer had the strength for anger. Rather, bewilderment became his constant companion. Rehearsals For Retirement is the chronicle of his confusion. A failed attempt to make sense of what he’d witnessed.

    In many ways, Phil understood the “what” – that is, the reasons behind the actions of the other side. “Pretty Smart on My Part”, and “I Kill, Therefore I Am” are accurate readings of the pulse of the increasing paranoia of the American Right Wing. What Ochs died trying to understand was the ‘why”, as exemplified in “My Life”. “So I turn to the land where I’m so out of place / Throw a curse on the plan in return for the grace / To know where I stand ” Phil could never conceive how, to so many people, he had been the bad guy all along.

    Rather than setting him free, the truth killed Phil Ochs. The realization that America had never, and likely would never, live out the true meaning of its creed; that he had been more Don Quixote than John Wayne, shook Ochs to his core. Rehearsals For Retirement is the portrait of a psyche crushed under the weight of its own idealism. It is the sagging, heavy load of Phil Ochs’ dream deferred.

    If Dylan was the voice of his generation, Ochs was its conscience.

  12. @DavidRobinson-hm4ge

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Thank you! I have always loved "Pleasures of the Harbor" above all of Phil's other albums. But the context you give for "Rehearsals for Retirement" caused me to elevate it to co-favorite status. By the way, I was glad to see you hold up Schumacher's bio of Phil. It's excellent.

  13. @Grouchator

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    I think barring that documentary released a while back, this could be most in depth video on Phil on the internet. Kudos and thank you.

    I’d love to hear more thoughts on “Death of a Rebel,” since that was the book I read on him when I was obsessed with him in college, since that was the one we had at the university library. Regardless of his struggles and foibles, he was a fascinating artist with a huge heart, and I wish he was around a lot longer than he was.

  20. @mrguy561

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Phil Ochs was/is an underappreciated national treasure. He was the most experimental and artistic American folk singer (Pleasures of the Harbor was his Pet Sounds imo) and never compromised his musical vision or censored himself to appease the powers at be. He loved the country and fought hard for our freedom and liberty with his words. His music is just as relevant today as it was in the late 60s. RIP Phil

  21. @pauldaniels2019

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    I always enjoy your videos. The timing of this one is perfect, in light of what is being forced upon the SoCal city where I was born and raised. You weren't around while Phil Ochs was breathing air, but you sure are very knowledgeable and eloquent in talking about him. Thank you.

  22. @videogeekin

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Maybe you can do a tribute to Sylvester Stewart(Sly Stone).
    * He helped discover and produce The Beau Brummels( one of my favorite groups from San Francisco).
    ** Your new hair looks nice.

  30. @stuartriefe1740

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    I now know how Abby feels about Big Brother YouTube censoring or pulling down a video just for saying something not “politically correct.” So I tested the theory by alerting all you viewer’s about this Saturday’s “No Kings” protests in at l000 cities all over the country. It’s as easy as typing in your zip code at the site that “must not be named” (quoting Harry Potter here.)
    So I encouraged viewers to read it as fast as the could, as I predicted the comment would be pulled in about 10 minutes.
    I came back after dinner and my comment to get involved and unite was nowhere to be found. Oh well. At least I tried.

  31. @kevinmccaighy8380

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    Thank you so much, Abigail, for this deeply incisive and informative essay/review. As someone who has always wondered about Phil Ochs, this was the perfect introduction to his life and his music. As someone who considers himself an activist, how our politics can inform the art of the left is hugely important to me. I recommend the film "Punishment Park" by the British filmmaker Peter Watkins to you, as a plausible nightmare scenario of post 68 repression. It feels all too relevant in 2025.

  33. @JSH-z8j

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    It's wonderful to see Phil Ochs covered, especially in such detail with all the necessary context. My late father played his albums all the time when I was growing up in the '00s. One minor quibble is that, based on the polling, I don't believe the American left is "split" on the issue of Gaza, or was during last year's election for that matter.

  36. @coreeeey420

    September 24, 2025 at 1:26 am

    The scariest thing is hearing you fear for your video being taken down, merely for going further into topic. Your channel and these videos are essentially education, historical education, more than just the music or the artists involved. You, or anyone, should not have to worry about being banned or censored for stating historic fact. It wasn't always this way.

    One thing I have noticed in my (almost) fifty-two years on this world is that no matter who is in charge or what party they belong to, nothing truly gets done. They all talk a good game, tell you what you want to hear, but what do they really achieve? You know, besides fleecing us every chance they get. You need to realize that in the politician's eyes, you are a vote, a paycheck, and nothing more. A servant to the person whom you gave the job. Doesn't make sense does it, paying someone to act like they're your boss. But people let it happen anyway, then go at each other's throats at the will of their paid masters, because of course, it's always the other guy's fault. That is the crux of the problem, the division enforced by the political machine. It's become more of "my side must win at all costs!" rather than focusing on fixing and maintaining the country. I've lately been wondering if maybe everything going on today is just all part of the plan, but that is a whole different spiel.

    We can beat this, but first we have to start listening to each other instead of hating.

    BTW are you going to do a Sly Stone tribute? I know it would be awesome.

    And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Comments are closed.

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