Song 86: I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-To-Die Rag, Country Joe MacDonald

The Woodstock performance, when Country Joe played the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixing-To-Die Rag to fill the gap in between the sets of two other performers, is my preferred version. In Pete Fornatale's book Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock and How It Changed a Generation, he tells the story through a pieced-together recollection of the conversation around the gap in performances:

Bill Belmont - I went up to Joe and said, "Listen, we're kind of in a bind. There's nobody to go on, we can't find anybody, a couple people are showing up, but they're not going to be here for an hour and a half. We don't want the crowd to get restless."


John Morris - He and I had done a tour together in Europe a couple years before and we had had a conversation about a solo act. He's wearing an army field coat, and I walked over to him and said, "You're about to start your solo career." I believe his words were "Are you out of your fuckin' mind? I don't even have a guitar." So we found him a guitar.