JOAN BAEZ - THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE

THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE

JOAN BAEZ

SONGWRITER: PHIL OCHS

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: JOAN BAEZ/5

LABEL: VANGUARD

GENRE: FOLK

YEAR: 1965

 

          Joan Chandos Baez (/baɪz/; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.

         Baez is generally regarded as a folk singer, but her music has diversified since the counterculture era of the 1960s and encompasses genres such as folk rock, pop, country, and gospel music. She began her recording career in 1960 and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol. 2 and Joan Baez in Concert, all achieved gold record status. Although a songwriter herself, Baez generally interprets other composers' work, having recorded songs by the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, the Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, and many others. She was one of the first major artists to record the songs of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s; Baez was already an internationally celebrated artist and did much to popularize his early songwriting efforts. On her later albums she has found success interpreting the work of more recent songwriters, including Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant and Joe Henry.

          Baez's acclaimed songs include "Diamonds & Rust" and covers of Phil Ochs's "There but for Fortune" and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". She is also known for "Farewell, Angelina", "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word", "Forever Young", "Here's to You", "Joe Hill", "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "We Shall Overcome". Baez performed fourteen songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights, and the environment. Baez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7, 2017

        "There but for Fortune" is a song by American folk musician Phil Ochs. Ochs wrote the song in 1963 and recorded it twice, for New Folks Volume 2 (Vanguard, 1964) and Phil Ochs in Concert (Elektra, 1966). Joan Baez also recorded "There but for Fortune" in 1964, and her version of the song became a chart hit.

           "There but for Fortune" consists of four verses, each one of which ends with the line "there but for fortune may go you or I". The first verse is about a prisoner. The second verse describes a hobo. The third verse is about a drunk who stumbles out of a bar. The final verse describes a country that has been bombed.

           One of Ochs' biographers wrote that, "of all the songs that Phil would ever write, none would show his humanity as brilliantly as the four brief verses of 'There but for Fortune'".

          The song's title was used as the name of the 1989 compilation album There but for Fortune, which featured material taken from three albums Ochs recorded for Elektra Records between 1964 and 1966. Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune was also used as the title of Michael Schumacher's 1996 biography, as well as Kenneth Bowser's 2011 documentary on the singer's life.

Show me the prison, show me the jail

Show me the prisoner, whose life has gone stale

And I'll show you a young man

With so many reasons why

And there but for fortune, go you or I, hmm, hmm

 

Show me the alley, show me the train

Show me the hobo, who sleeps out in the rain

And I'll show you a young man

With so many reasons why

And there but for fortune ,go you or I, hmm, hmm

 

Show me the whiskey, stains on the floor

Show me the drunkard, as he stumbles out the door

And I'll show you a young man

with so many reasons why

And there but for fortune go you or I, hmm, hmm

 

Show me the country, where the bombs had to fall

Show me the ruins of the buildings, once so tall

And I'll show you a young land

with so many reasons why

And there but for fortune go you and I, you and I.