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One Way Ticket Home Lyrics

I'd like a one-way ticket home, ticket home
Where I can watch television, talk on the telephone
But every town I wander there's a billboard on a throne
Ticket home
I want a ticket home

Does anybody know my name, or recognize my face
I must have come from somewhere, but I can't recall the place
they dropped me at the matinee, they left without a trace
Ticket home
I want a ticket home

Elvis Presley is the king, I was at his crowning
My life just flashed before my eyes, I must be drowning

Seems like only yesterday I climbed aboard the plane
Raping distance in the skies, while diving in champagne
I would be in exile now, but everywhere's the same
Ticket home
I want a ticket home

Elvis Presley is the king, I was at his crowning
My life just flashed before my eyes, I must be drowning

Seems like only yesterday I climbed aboard the plane
Raping distance in the sky, while diving in champagne
I would be in exile now, but everywhere's the same
Ticket home
I want a ticket home
2 Meanings

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Cover art for One Way Ticket Home lyrics by Phil Ochs

I've always read this one as being about that listlessness that comes from a rapidly changed circumstance.

I think by this point in his career, Phil felt very out of place and was hoping to disappear into his memories and a time that made sense to him, back when Elvis was top of the charts and Phil himself wasn't a known entity.

I think it also speaks to a sense of alienation that's pretty common in the depressed, you could get everything you want and still feel empty.

Or I could just be reading far too into this, either way, I love this song and it gets better with every listen, thanks Phil.

Cover art for One Way Ticket Home lyrics by Phil Ochs

This song--it seems to me--could be taken in two ways: 1) It could be taken as a plea from a young soldier in Vietnam, who just wants to return t a place where the biggest fight is Coke or Pepsi. Or 2) It could also be his desire to return to the simpler times of American history. In the fifties, "Elvis Presley [was] the king", television was new and fantastic, etrc. And then, in the sixties, everything started to fall apart. The generations split, the President of the United States was being villified, fear and discord were everywhere, and maybe he just wants everything that changed so suddenly to go back to the way it was back then. Anyway, fantastic song, love the timpani at the beginning.

 
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