I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag - Country Joe McDonald

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Cong.” Businesses create these weapons but then sell them to governments with little thought on who this is going to hurt. This stanzas last lines ridicule businesses want to make a profit overshadowing the responsibility of their actions.

The songs last verse is a satire directed towards the silent population who hasn’t voiced contempt for the war. It calls out both mothers and fathers to “Pack your boys off to Vietnam...before it’s too late.” To show the irony of this statement, McDonald reminds people what usually happens when a man is sent to war. Many people who leave to fight die. Why be so excited to go to war so “ you can be the first ones in your block, To have your boy come home in a box.” This is an statement made to make people question sending their boys to the war. No mother or Father wants their son to die. McDonald is using parents emotions to strengthen his message against the war.

The song’s chorus is chalked full of dark irony and sarcasm. It scorns those who have blindly been supporting the war. Its questions, “What are we fighting for?” but instantly mocks this serious question with, “Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam.” This brings to light the fact that people were ready to go to war for their country without considering the facts of why. Those who questioned the war at it beginning were labeled unpatriotic and communist sympathisers.This hopelessness was continued by the choruses ending, “Open up the pearly gates, Well there ain’t no time to wonder why, Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.” People didn’t have time to question the war before they were being sent of to it. By saying “Whoopee”, like a children’s song, McDonald is ridiculing the seriousness of the war. He ironically sounds excited to go to war, when clearly he hates war.

To further the irony laced throughout his lyrics, McDonald chose to play a catchy tune on his guitar. He’s song sounds happy and carefree. After a first listen his song, it could be easy to mistaken it as in support of the war. It’s not till the lyrics are looked at that the songs true message becomes clear. The songs tune reaffirmed the sarcasm of his lyrics. McDonald knew what he was doing when he wrote an upbeat tune with his lyrics of mockery.

The effect of this I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag and other songs like it had a deep effect on the nation’s counter-culter and anti-war movements. Music has always had the ability to affect our mood and change our behavior. Anti-war songs filled the counterculture and later the entire country into a movement that end the war and changed society for the better.