Phil Ochs is one of those songwriter-performers who continues to hit where it hurts; who keeps trying for a clean knockout. It is true he writes "Changes," but in almost the same breath he turns out the Brechtian "Cops Of The World," one of the most scathing indictments yet of the brutal stormtrooper arrogance of Americans who contemplate themselves as the noble policemen of the globe….

In a sense Ochs is writing from the inside, as a representative of the social strata which has brought our present dilemma to pass. He is a modern type "folksinger," that is one with an urban, college campus background…. Once he got going, however, he went all the way; among his 200 songs, anti-war, anti-discrimination, anti-hypocrisy, are some of the bluntest that any songwriter has written in the sixties. And he keeps straight toward the goal he has set for himself, namely "to...