The "Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag" Story
by Paul Hooson
September 24, 2010
One of the more outlandish performances that was so memorable from
Woodstock was County Joe & The Fish doing their outrageous version of
"The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag" song. Instead of
spelling out F-I-S-H, they went for the more outrageous vulgar "F"
word instead. It was an outrageous 1960's antiwar protest song performance.
As popular as this moment was with the Woodstock crowd, it resulted
in a concert promoter cutting their ties with MacDonald. Ed Sullivan
canceled the band's appearance on the show, but allowed them to keep
the paid advance money. And, in Massachusetts the band was cited for
public obscenity during a show and fined $500 for using the vulgar
"F" word version of the song. Yet, the the darkly funny protest song
made a place in history for the band.
Interestingly, Country Joe was actually sued over the song in 2003 by
a copyright holder, the daughter of songwriter Kid Ory, who claimed
that the song was actually lifted from an old 1926 Jazz song,
"Muskrat Ramble" her father had written. Strangely, Ory's daughter
had sued based off a 1999 version of the song that Country Joe had
recorded, when the song had actually existed since 1965 on an early
Country Joe & The Fish Ep and later album. Ory's daughter sued for
the 1999 version because the statue of limitations had expired on the
1965 version of the song. However, this was a fatal legal flaw
because lawyers for Country Joe were able to successfully use a
"laches" defense, or otherwise that Ory's daughter had slept on her
rights for many too many years. Ory's daughter actually had to pay
MacDonald $750,000 for legal fees when she lost this case. Further,
she had to sell the rights to her father's songs to also pay for the
settlement to MacDonald.
Controversy is nothing new for the outlandish 68 year old MacDonald.
He was born to two parents who were American Communists who moved to
the Berkley, California area and were active in leftist politics.
Joe's mom actually served as a city council member in Berkley for
many years, winning election after election. Country Joe was
interestingly named after Soviet dictator Josef Stalin by his
parents, who were sharp critics of the American way of capitalism and
politics, although young Joe enlisted in the Navy at the age of 17.
However, despite growing involvement in Vietnam, the Navy discharged
Joe MacDonald for several reasons according to him. His anger and
left leaning background led him to write the
"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" song in about 30 minutes as a
form of dark "GI humor" as MacDonald explained. Country Joe's
critical views on the military were based largely on his being being
a military veteran himself as well as opposing the draft. But Country
Joe supports the concept of joining the military and being a
volunteer soldier. Country Joe could best be viewed as a nationalist
type of American.
Conservative TV host, Bill O'Reilly has been a critic of Country Joe
MacDonald, even making a comparison between him and Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro because of his support and protest involvement with
leftist antiwar mom Cindy Sheehan. But, that's so typical for County
Joe. He's still radical after all these years, influenced both by his
leftist childhood as well as his former and unhappy involvement in
the military as well as his stature as a main figure in the protest
music scene. Country Joe was long associated with Vanguard records, a
label featuring other 60's leftist protest singers such as Joan Baez
for example.
Many years have passed, but County Joe is still radical after all
these years it seems. Some things just never change.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment