Tender Comrade is one of those shiver songs for me. That and The Waterboys’ *Red Army Blues *are my two favourite Russia-in-WWII songs. OK, those are the *only *Russia-in-WWII songs I know, but even if I knew others, they’d still be it.
I guess I should go back and re-listen to The Internationale - I remember kind of writing it off when it was released, and when I got the box set re-issues I didn’t bother to give it a listen. I’ll try and remedy that tonight.
“I dreamed I saw Phil Ochs last night” is great. “The Red Flag” is a really good reworking. I don’t like the version of the Internationale, because I think he sold out a lot of the power of the original English lyrics.
“Marching Songs of the Covert Battalions” always brings a smile to my face.
I’ve got a (casette, yowza!) bootleg of two of those gigs. They do an amazing cover of John Prine’s “Hello in There” (Billy screws it up at first :D) and also a pretty awesome version of “My Youngest Son Came Home Today.”
Glad to see some Billy love here. Sadly, I have only seen him live once, but it was a great time.
PS. Should mention “Northern Industrial Town” as one of his later gems, since no one has brought it up yet.