{"id":9559,"date":"2024-09-25T23:08:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T05:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=9559"},"modified":"2025-06-29T03:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T09:43:15","slug":"the-wind-and-the-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/25\/the-wind-and-the-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wind and the Fury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A look at Wild Is the Wind<\/em>, the film and its theme song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In July 1968, just before I turned thirteen, Phil Ochs released his fifth LP, Tape from California<\/em>. I didn’t know Ochs from Adam, and because one of our local FM stations played only the album’s title track in fairly heavy rotation, I didn’t know it contained his rendition of “Joe Hill<\/a>” as well as the self-penned “White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land.” Also unknown to me were his “The War Is Over,” which preceded John and Yoko’s billboard campaign by about eighteen months, and his famous anthem “I Ain’t Marching Anymore” from three years prior. I only heard those when seeing him live during a concert on April 11, 1969 at CU’s Macky Auditorium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Phil
Parental indiscretion.<\/strong> The ticket stubs page from my Rock Scrapbook that was to collect such souvenirs. My father called the Macky box office to ask whether the Ochs concert was appropriate for a young teen. I imagine the ticket agent suppressing sniggers as he answered in the affirmative: the concert was sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clueless, in the fall of ’68 I had voted for Nixon in a junior high school mock election. My shocked schoolmate Marjorie took me under her wing in due course, while Phil Ochs had yet to contribute to the soundtrack of my conversion. Clueless, that summer upon first listen, I’d thought Ochs was Johnny Mathis, so untrained was my choirboy’s ear. Ten years ago I tried to convince my late comrade Lowell May of the two singers’ resemblance, pairing Ochs’s title song along with Mathis’s rendition of “Light My Fire,” released four months later. Lowell: “I still don’t hear the similarity between the singers, but I can better see how you might.” Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n