Country Joe McDonald, née Joseph Allen McDonald, passed away last week at the age of 84, taking another page out of the songbook of my early life with him. The good thing about music is that the songs and the impressions they make never die.
My father used to hate that I played his music over and over. Which of course led me to play his music over and over even more during those years of America’s war in Vietnam.
And as we all know, or one day find out, what was will always be again.
In the wake of Country Joe’s passing another generation is discovering songs of his especially The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m Fixing- To-Die-Rag, which McDonald wrote in 20 minutes or so for an anti-Vietnam War play. About the song, he’s quoted as saying he “was inspired to write a song about how soldiers have no choice in the matter, but to follow orders, but with the irreverence of rock n’ roll. It was essentially punk rock before punk existed.”
It’s a damn shame we actually have to go through terrible times again to re-discover the music that helped us through them once before. But here we are.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
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