Analysis of Country Joe's I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag

Throughout the last century music has functioned as a means of enlightenment.  It has served to highlight the social injustices around the world, and bring about social change.  As the rhythm moves people to dance, the message moves people to take action.  The unity generated through a collective identity in song, develops a political base for activism.  In sharing similar injustices or oppressive experiences, people discover similarities in their circumstances and come together to alter their situation.  Vietnam anti-war music is no different; it illuminates the discrepancies between the U.S. government and the anti-war faction of the United States.  This war is debatably one of the most controversial wars of the century.  Issues surrounding the war ranged from whether or not the U.S. was justified in entering the war, to whether or not it was unpatriotic for draftees to refuse to fight.  Music such as Joe McDonald’s, sarcastically diagnoses three major issues surrounding the war.  First he examines the beneficial economic aspect of the Vietnam War, than he looks at the overzealous use of aggression by war generals, and finally he explores the appeasement of American’s in believing in the drafting of their sons.  In focusing on the diagnosis of these issues, Joe McDonald’s I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag, illustrates the hopelessness many American’s felt toward the Vietnam War.

War has been a big industry for the greater part of the decade, which makes peace a somewhat lost cause.  The United States manufactures weapons, valuable only during war time, so it is understandable that one of the issues addressed by anti-war protesters was the justification for U.S. entry into the Vietnam conflict.  Country Joe addresses this issue in his I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag, “There's plenty good money to be made by supplying the army with the tools of its trade.”  While it is a serious accusation to say that the government is involved in the war for economic purposes, McDonald injects a sarcastic element into the song, “but just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb, they drop it on the Viet Cong.”  In doing so, he reveals the ironic truth of the statement.  To say the U.S. would endanger the lives of their soldiers to make a profit is a bit absurd, however it was believed by some that money was a factor in U.S. involvement in this conflict.  If corporate interest were what was fueling the war, the war seemed somewhat helpless.  The people felt they had virtually no say in the war; the U.S. military was at the hands of a government who felt that it was in the best interest, economically, to go to war. 

 In addition to economic interests, the notion that generals were trigger-happy and they were overbearing with force emerged within the anti-war movement.  As long as the generals maintained this aggressive attitude there was little hope the soldiers would ever get of Vietnam.  This war followed the cold war era, where the idea of just dropping a bomb to stop the spread of communism was common.  McDonald reflected the general’s aggressive attitude in the diagnosis of I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag, “well, come on generals, let's move fast; your big chance has come at last.  Now you can go out and get those reds 'cause the only good commie is the one that's dead.”  It was this intense attitude that the war had to be won, which made the war so helpless.   This was a war of attrition, and the end was nowhere in sight.  Communism was not an area where the government was willing to compromise, “and you know that peace can only be won when we've blown 'em all to kingdom come,” it was feeble to expect an end to the war, as McDonald illustrates in the prognosis.    

Furthermore, McDonald addresses the willingness of the American people to go along with war.  It was unpatriotic not to support the troops, but McDonald criticizes the willingness of parents send their sons of to war without really knowing what they are fighting for, “come on mothers throughout the land,
pack your boys off to Vietnam.”  In diagnosing the appeasement of the parents to the government’s draft, this song highlights the frugal chance that the war will be brought to an end.  If those who are losing their sons will not protest the war, than who will. 

McDonald asks parents to re-evaluate their thought that it is patriotic to send their sons to war.  Through his sarcastic tone, he equates their patriotism with keeping up with fashion trends, “send your sons off before it's too late.  And you can be the first ones on your block to have your boy come home in a box.”  He makes war seem like a fad, a competition of patriotism.  In relating war to a neighborhood fad he highlights the helplessness of ending the war.  To fight for change the parents opinions needed to align with the movement; the opinions of the parents who are losing their children have more value in the movement than those unaffected by the war.  It was wrong in McDonald’s opinion to view the war as an acceptable thing, and to just go along with it to keep up with the rest of the patriotic nation.  McDonald implies that so long as parents continue to ship their children to Vietnam, the war will continue. 

By focusing on diagnosing the problems associated with the Vietnam War, Joe McDonald illustrates that there was virtually no clear-cut solution for the withdrawal of American troops.  There was a helpless aura about the Vietnam War.  So long as the United States was viewing the war as a profit generating event there was little chance that the U.S. was going to avoid becoming involved.   Furthermore, so long as generals maintained their rigid stance against communism, the war would continue.  The forceful, victory oriented nature of the U.S. military caused the U.S. to prolong their efforts in Vietnam.  Finally, finding an end to the war was helpless so long as parents sent their children off to war.   The war would rage on for a few years after McDonald wrote this song, largely because no one could figure how to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam.  McDonald’s focus on the problem shows how difficult it was for anyone to find a solution; his music had to focus on the diagnosis because all prognoses were grim.