I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag
1965 · Rag Baby RAG 1001 1965 · USA
- Artist
- Country Joe & The Fish
- Title
- I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag
- Release
- Rag Baby Talking Issue No. 1
- Year
- 1965
- Label
- Rag Baby RAG 1001 # 1965
- Format
- 7" · EP
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Rock · Psychedelic Rock
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
Country Joe & The Fish formed in 1965, in Berkeley, California, and featured Country Joe McDonald, Barry Melton, David Cohen, Chicken Hirsh, and Bruce Barthol. McDonald and Bill Belmont founded the label Rag Baby which issued a magazines / pamphlets containing an EP. (1) The track "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" (Rag Baby Records # 1001) is one of the most well known and key of the Vietnam protest songs. Joe McDonald wrote the song in the summer of 1965 in just 30 minutes, after being discharged from the US navy, and subsequently released it on this EP in October. McDonald performed the song live at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, one of the standout performances of the motion picture Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music. He said that: "the song attempts to put blame for the war upon the politicians and leaders of the US military and upon the industry that makes its money from war but not upon those who had to fight the war...the soldiers. It expresses the thoughts of a person trapped in the military system and forced to go to war by something called "conscription". Conscription or the "draft" as it was called...The song attempts to address the horror of going to war with a…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Annotation — Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs
Country Joe & The Fish formed in 1965, in Berkeley, California, and featured Country Joe McDonald, Barry Melton, David Cohen, Chicken Hirsh, and Bruce Barthol. McDonald and Bill Belmont founded the label Rag Baby which issued a magazines / pamphlets containing an EP. (1) The track "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" (Rag Baby Records # 1001) is one of the most well known and key of the Vietnam protest songs. Joe McDonald wrote the song in the summer of 1965 in just 30 minutes, after being discharged from the US navy, and subsequently released it on this EP in October. McDonald performed the song live at the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, one of the standout performances of the motion picture Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music. He said that:"the song attempts to put blame for the war upon the politicians and leaders of the US military and upon the industry that makes its money from war but not upon those who had to fight the war...the soldiers. It expresses the thoughts of a person trapped in the military system and forced to go to war by something called "conscription". Conscription or the "draft" as it was called...The song attempts to address the horror of going to war with a…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
Psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in Berkeley, California, around Country Joe McDonald (born 1 January 1942, Washington, D.C.; died March 2026) and Barry 'The Fish' Melton; best known for the antiwar anthem I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (1967) and its Woodstock performance. Disbanded in the early 1970s [disband location not stated]. [Source: Wikipedia; NPR obituary]