Thursday 11 December 2008

Behind the Songs: Where Were You in Chicago?

"Oh, where were you in Chicago
When the fight was being fought?
Oh, where were you in Chicago?
'Cause I was in Detroit"
--Phil Ochs, "Where Were You in Chicago?" (1969)

Chicago '68

Chicago '68 reconstructs the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago--an epochal moment in American cultural and political history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Farber tells the story of the protests in the three different voices of the major protagonists--the Yippies, the National Mobilization to End the War, and Mayor Richard J. Daley and his police. He brilliantly re-creates all the excitement and drama, the violently charged action and language of this period of crisis, giving life to the whole set of cultural experiences we call "the sixties."

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