Handbook of Death & Dying: Volume One

by Clifton D. Bryant

Hammering home one's criticisms of society with death as the heavy club is another dramatic maneuver. The counterculture movement during the Vietnam War was spearheaded by musical protests. Phil Ochs was on the front line in that struggle, one of his songs concluding every stanza with,

I am the masculine American man

I kill therefore I am.

Ochs self-destructed, one of all too many who have danced with death in an artistic modality and thereby forfeited their lives.