"When In Rome" (1968)

Yesterday's post included footage of the March 11, 2016 Trump rally in Chicago, an event that seemed outrageous until I returned to footage of the August 1968 Democratic Convention, where Chicago's Mayor Daley invited the cops in, and they wreaked havoc on everyone -- not just on dissenters, but on the media as well.

Among those who attended the 1968 Democratic Convention was folksinger Phil Ochs, who had released Tape From California a month before. This is an album I listened to a lot in the early 1980s, when I started writing songs of my own.

For me, Ochs's "When In Rome" is a more lyrical (and more satisfying) treatment of the times than better known summations by Don McLean ("American Pie", 1971) and the Eagles ("Hotel California", 1976). Story of Ochs's life (and temperment) that he did not receive the attention for his songs that McLean and members of the Eagles received for theirs.