Tape from California

Tape From California was Phil Ochs' fifth album, released in mid-1968 on A&M Records. A step back from its predecessor, a sort of cross between that album and 1966's Phil Ochs In Concert, it featured folk with shades of rock, bluegrass and baroque music.

Related Topics:
Phil Ochs - 1968 - A&M Records - That album - 1966 - Phil Ochs In Concert

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The best-known track was the epic "The War Is Over", a portrait of the ridiculousness of war released at a time when Vietnam seemed as if it would never end. Its upbeat, military-style backing is as appropriate as the backing for "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" had been one year prior, none at all. The opening track, written as he was moving from New York City out to Los Angeles, is the first truly rocking song in Ochs' catalogue, an aural comment on Ochs' own life circa 1968. "The Harder They Fall" was a reworking of nursery rhyme characters into a somewhat menacing and bewildering tale, including lines about Mother Goose stealing lines from Lenny Bruce. "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land", in line with his earlier anti-war songs, is one of the more poetic songs on the album.

Related Topics:
Vietnam - 1968 - Lenny Bruce

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"When In Rome", lasting over thirteen minutes, was Ochs' longest song, a sort of portrait of depression in the style of Dylan's opus "Desolation Row", set to simple acoustic guitar backing, it could have been about life in ancient Rome, America in the 1960s, or any other point in between.

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