Outside of a Small Circle of Friends
Phil Ochs - 1967· Songs Well-Known in America · p.252
C D C D
Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed.
Ridin' down the highway, yes my back is getting stiff.
Sweating in the ghetto with the Panthers and the poor.
There's a dirty paper using sex to make a sale
Smoking Mari - juana is more fun than drinking beer,
C Am F G
They dragged her to the bushes, and now she's being stabbed.
Thirteen cars have piled up; they're hanging on a cliff.
The rats have joined the babies who are sleeping on the floor.
The Supreme Court was so upset they sent him off to jail
But a friend of ours was captured; and they gave him thirty years.
E Am
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain.
Maybe we should pull them back with our towing-chain,
Now wouldn't it be a riot if they really blew their tops,
Maybe we should help the fiend and take away his fine,
Maybe we should raise our voices, ask somebody why;
F Dm G
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game,
But we gotta move, & we might get sued, & it looks like it's gonna rain.
But they got too much already, and be-sides we got the cops.
But we're busy reading Playboy and The Sunday New York Times.
But demonstrations are a drag, be-sides we're much too high.
Chorus:
C Am E♭
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
`
Cm F
outside of a small circle of friends.
*Inspired by the stabbing death of Kitty Genovese in 1964 in New York’s Queens borough