Draft Dodger Rag

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"Draft Dodger Rag"
I Ain't Marching Anymore
Published1964
Released1965
GenreProtest song, folk
Length2:07
LabelElektra
Songwriter(s)Phil Ochs
Producer(s)Jac Holzman
"The Draft Dodger Rag"
Country folk
Length2:10
LabelColumbia
Songwriter(s)Phil Ochs
Producer(s)John Hammond
Pete Seeger singles chronology
"Healing River"
(1965) 		"The Draft Dodger Rag"
(1966) 		"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy"
(1967)

"Draft Dodger Rag" is a satirical

anti-Vietnam War movement.[1]

Ochs wrote "Draft Dodger Rag" as American involvement in the

ruptured spleen, allergies and asthma, back pain, addiction to multiple drugs, his college enrollment, his disabled aunt, and the fact that he carries a purse.[2][3] (One historian of the draft resistance movement wrote that Ochs "described nearly every available escape from conscription".[3]) As the song ends, the young man tells the sergeant that he'll be the first to volunteer for "a war without blood or gore".[2][4]

"Draft Dodger Rag" was the first prominent satirical song about the draft during the Vietnam War.[5] One writer says its humor can be appreciated on its own level, without respect to the political message of the song.[6] Another says it added "much-needed humour" to the protest song genre.[7]

Ochs wrote of the song:

In Vietnam, a 19-year-old Vietcong soldier screams that Americans should leave his country as he is shot by a government firing squad. His American counterpart meanwhile is staying up nights thinking up ways to deceptively destroy his health, mind, or virility to escape two years in a relatively comfortable army. Free enterprise strikes again.[8]

Ochs performed "Draft Dodger Rag" in 1965 on a CBS Evening News television special Avoiding the Draft, one of the rare instances in which he appeared on a national American television broadcast.[9][10]

The Smothers Brothers

On November 19, 1967, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour featured the Smothers Brothers and actor George Segal singing "Draft Dodger Rag". Dick Smothers introduced the song by saying it was about a "great effort" some young American men were making. Tom Smothers added that the song was about a problem and how it was being solved with "good old American ingenuity". They ended the song by proclaiming "Make love, not war!"[11]

Cover versions

Several performers beside the Smothers Brothers have

Chad Mitchell Trio, The Four Preps, Kind of Like Spitting, Tom Paxton, David Rovics, and Pete Seeger.[12] Seeger's version was released as a single.[13]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-313-32689-4
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-87586-207-1
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-8078-5436-0
    .
  4. OCLC 41480512
    .
  5. ISBN 0-313-31528-0
    .
  6. ISBN 9780313315282
    .
  7. ISBN 978-1-55652-754-8
    .
  8. I Ain't Marching Anymore (Media notes). Elektra
    . EKL-287/EKS-7287.
  9. ISBN 0-313-31029-7
    .
  10. ISBN 0-7868-6084-7
    .
  11. ISBN 0-8223-2645-0
    .
  12. ^ Cohen, Phil Ochs, pp. 278, 285, 286.
  13. ^ "Spotlight Singles". Billboard. July 9, 1966. p. 16.
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