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Indybay Feature

Feel like I'm fixin to die rag

by marc
Some of the hippies were right. When I was a kid in the 1960s, I used to really get into this song because it was so fun and scarily foreshadowed the possibility of my own draft that would have come only a few yr after the war ended.

It applies as well today as it did at Woodstock.

Now "Country" Joe Mellon is a SF lawyer, ran for judge a while back.
Listen now:
Copy the code below to embed this audio into a web page:
Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag (Next Stop Vietnam)
Country Joe & the Fish

Come on all of you big strong men
Uncle Sam needs your help again
he's got himself in a terrible jam
way down yonder in Viet Nam so
put down your books and pick up a gun we're
gonna have a whole lotta fun

(CHORUS)
And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for
don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates
ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die

Come on generals, let's move fast
your big chance has come at last
now you can go out and get those reds
cos the only good commie is the one that's dead and
you know that peace can only be won when we've
blown 'em all to kingdom come

Come on wall street don't be slow
why man this war is a go-go
there's plenty good money to be made by
supplying the army with the tools of its trade
let's hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
they drop it on the Viet Cong

Come on mothers throughout the land
pack your boys off to Viet Nam
come on fathers don't hesitate
send your sons off before it's too late
and you can be the first ones on your block
to have your boy come home in a box
by King Daevid MacKenzie (thevoiceoflabor [at] charter.net)
...many thanks for the mp3. But to correct a little misinformation in the piece, the name is Country Joe _McDonald_, not Mellon, and on the mp3 it's his solo performance at Woodstock rather than a group performance. Joe's web site is at http://www.countryjoe.com/ and he's gotten back together with other members of the old band to tour this year. Perhaps you're confusing his name with that of bandmate Barry "The Fish" Melton, who has become a lawyer and lives n San Francisco (Joe lives in Berkeley); http://www.counterculture.net/thefish/ is Barry's website...

...oh, by the way, Country Joe later did a follow-up tune about the anti-war vets' movement titled "Kiss my ass" -- I'd love for someone to post an mp3 of that one...
by marc
thanks king david for the correction, fish and country joe. i was 7 when woodstock went down, so my memory is a bit fuzzy.

I was actually trying to find the (better) album version on gnutella, but only the woodstock version was available.

the damn song gives me goosebumps in how exactly appropriate it is for today.
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