PHOTO ESSAY

Rebel Yells

A protest music mixtape

By Matthew McKinnon

August 12, 2005

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Country Joe & the Fish. The band featured  "Country" Joe McDonald (seated, second from left) and Barry Melton (standing). Photo Getty Images/Hulton Archive.

The “Fish” Cheer / I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag, Country Joe & the Fish

(Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag, 1967)

Now for something completely different. Country Joe & the Fish were one of rock’s oddest acts of the ’60s. Their singer, “Country” Joe McDonald, was named for Joseph Stalin and raised in an atmosphere of political activism. He enlisted and served in the U.S. Navy at age 18; in his mid-20s, McDonald wrote what became a defining cry against the Vietnam war. “Come on mothers throughout the land / Pack your boys off to Vietnam / Come on fathers, don’t hesitate / To send them off before it’s too late / Be the first one on your block / To have your boy come home in a box.”

Most people remember the sing-along rendition of Fixin’ To Die that McDonald and the Fish delivered at Woodstock (“Gimme an ‘F’! / Gimme a ‘U’!...”). The album cut is a psychedelic spiral that ends with a machinegun burst and the roar of jetcraft. Both versions deliver the same strident message.

Almost four decades later, Fixin’ To Die’s chorus surely remains stamped to the brainpans of aging hippies across the States, even the acid burnouts: “And it’s one, two, three / What are we fighting for? / Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn / Next stop is Vietnam!” Look for a comeback cover version the instant somebody like, say, Sheryl Crow figures out how to stretch Iraq to three syllables.