The War Is Over (Phil Ochs song)
| "The War Is Over" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Phil Ochs | |
| from the album Tape from California | |
| Published | 1968 |
| Released | 1968 |
| Genre | Protest song |
| Length | 4:25 |
| Label | A&M |
| Songwriter(s) | Phil Ochs |
| Producer(s) | Larry Marks |
| "The War Is Over" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Phil Ochs | ||||
| B-side | "The Harder They Fall" | |||
| Released | 1968 | |||
| Format | Vinyl | |||
| Genre | Protest song | |||
| Length | 2:45 | |||
| Label | A&M | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Phil Ochs | |||
| Producer(s) | Larry Marks | |||
| Phil Ochs singles chronology | ||||
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"The War Is Over" is an anti-war song by Phil Ochs, an American protest singer in the 1960s and early 1970s, who is known for being a harsh critic of the war in Vietnam and the American military-industrial establishment. The song, which was originally released on Tape from California (1968), has been described as "one of the most potent antiwar songs of the 1960s".
One of Ochs' biographers wrote that "The War Is Over" is his "greatest act of bravery as a topical songwriter".
American involvement in the Vietnam War escalated significantly during 1966. The number of American troops fighting in Vietnam increased that year from 184,000 to 450,000.
In 1966, poet Allen Ginsberg decided to declare that the Vietnam War was over. The idea of ending the war simply by declaring it over appealed to Ochs, who organized a rally in Los Angeles to announce that the war was over. To publicize the rally, he wrote an article in the Los Angeles Free Press titled "Have Faith, The War Is Over":
Is everybody sick of this stinking war? In that case, friends, do what I and thousands of other Americans have done — declare the war over.
Ochs wrote a song for the rally, in which he, like "thousands of other Americans", declared the war was over.
"The War Is Over" alludes to war films and their heroes and asks "what's this got to do with me?" The song describes anti-war protesters as "angry artists painting angry signs" who have become "poisoned players" in a cycle of endless anti-war demonstrations that have failed to end the war. The song mockingly suggests that young men enlist in the army to "serve your country in her suicide", but adds that "just before the end even treason might be worth a try — this country is too young to die". Each verse of the song ends with variations on the words, "I declare the war is over, it's over, it's over".
Ochs recorded "The War Is Over" for his fifth album, Tape from California. The musical arrangement, by Bob Thompson, incorporates martial beats, brass horns, and flutes. The opening is a theme from the National Emblem March by Edwin Eugene Bagley. Other parts of the arrangement include quotes from John Philip Sousa's patriotic march "Stars and Stripes Forever", implying that opposition to the Vietnam War was patriotic. As the song fades out, the horns play part of Ochs's own "I Ain't Marching Anymore".
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Wikipedia