I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag (Redux)

I had a few spare minutes at the office, so I’ve altered some words in Country Joe & the Fish’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag”.

I know some Dopers are against a war in Iraq, and some are for one. I don’t want to start a debate here. Just a little light comedy.

I didn’t change much; just enough to fit the song to the current situation.

Anyone else want to make up verses?

Hehe I like that song, ever since I first heard it watching the Woodstock videos (I am nowhere near old enough to have gone myself!). I don’t think I have it in me to come up with a verse, though!

Regarding your sig…I have read Le Petit Prince a gazillion times in French, but every time I see your sig I can’t figure out where the equivalent french line is! When does he say that?

Would you believe it’s from Wartime Writings? :slight_smile:

No wonder I couldn’t figure it out! It just didn’t seem right, and I couldn’t imagine how badly the rest must have been translated! :). Wartime Writings…is that Lettre à un hotage? I have never read anything else by him, but want to. I was thinking of checking out the bookstores back home for them, as I’m pretty sure I won’t find anything here in French.

Sorry for the hijack :slight_smile:

I don’t know how it translates into French. It’s been years since I’ve read it, but this is what I recall:

St. Ex. wanted to be a fighter pilot with the Free French in WWII, but his commanders said he was too old – He was in his fourties, when most fighter pilots were in their twenties. He was very depressed. Here was a chance to use his expert flying abilities to strike a blow against the German invaders, and they weren’t letting him fly. I don’t recall the context where he penned this line, but I think it might have been when he was lamenting his grounding.

Eventually he wrangled a spot as a reconaissance pilot flying a Free French Lockheed P-38. One day in 1944 he failed to return from a mission. It was believed he had been shot down by a Focke-Wulf FW-190 over the Med. As I said, he was very depressed at the time. He talked about shunning the World after the war and becoming a monk. Who knows? He may have killed himself. Or he could have just crashed.

But I prefer to believe he was shot down by enemy action. That seems more likely to me.

A couple of years ago some fishermen pulled up a scrap of a flightsuit and an identity bracelet. The bracelet belonged to St. Ex. As far as I know, the P-38 was never recovered, nor do I know of any plans to find it.

I did find the book rather depressing. Here was a man who had flown all of his adult life, trapped in an aging body in a young man’s game. I like to think that he died in a valiant struggle against the enemy. That’s the way he would have wanted to go. And I thought the book – although depressing – is a good read.

Sounds interesting - I only know what the biography thing in my copy of Le Petit Prince said about him. It doesn’t explain his death, either - just that de disappeared. It lists his works, and I’ve wanted to read some of them for some time now, even though I know that none of them are like the Prince. I absolutely love that book.

Heck of a hijack this is! Still, at least I learned something - thats what were here for, right? :smiley:

Back to the tread title:

Not a new verse to your song, but I just remembered during the Gulf War in 91 CFN radio on the military base in Germany where I was at the time (civilian dependent) played a couple of songs. I don’t remember them much, other than “Deck the Halls with Nuclear Weapons”, the Milli Vannilli Classic “Blame it on Hussein” and of course,

“Bomb bomb bomb
bomb bomb Iraq
Bomb bomb bomb
bomb bomb Iraq
Bomb bomb bomb
bomb bomb Ira-a-aq!
We should attack!
Set our people free
or your country’s history
bomb iraq, bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iraq…”

(Sung to the tune of “Barbara-Ann”.

My song is posted here.

I did this back during the last Iraq war

Mine went (let’s see if I can remember)

Well come on all you big strong men
Uncle Bush had drawn a line in the sand
(can’t remember the next two lines)
Just hope when they drop that bomb, they drop it ol’ Saddam

and it 1 2 3 what are we fighting for
don’t ask me I dont’ give a fuck
Lets kick Saddam’s big but.
and it 5 6 7 open up the pearly gates
Well its un-American to question why
whoopie they’re all gonna die