Country Joe

Now reconstituted with four of the group’s original five members, the new Country Joe Band has just begun to tour. When I saw them perform, midway through April, the music was as tight as ever, with poetic lyrics mostly brought to bear on two perennials: love and death. 

Their new song “Cakewalk to Baghdad” is in sync with Country Joe McDonald’s compositions that stretch back to the escalating years of the Vietnam War. With the post-“victory” occupation of Iraq in its 13th month bringing death to many people, his old song “An Untitled Protest” remains unfailingly current: 

Red and swollen tears tumble from her eyes 
While cold silver birds who came to cruise the skies 
Send death down to bend and twist her tiny hands 
And then proceed to target “B” in keeping with their plans. 

No less than its previous incarnation, the Country Joe Band exemplifies how rock music can transcend itself as an art form. This is no small feat for any musician, including those who create songs that encourage resistance to the status quo. 

By now, apparently, we’d be foolish to take the integrity of talented artists for granted. Maybe, as a late 1960s advertisement proclaimed, “the man can’t bust our music”—but the corporate system can sure water it down a lot or turn music into outright pabulum. 

Television showcases plenty of grim results when so many knees bend toward corporatized altars. 

These days, cynicism about famous musicians with protest credentials is running high. In March, Bob Dylan began to appear in a Victoria’s Secret commercial. It may seem that “the times they are a prostitutin’.” 

Media outlets are filled with ads, commercial plugs, and vapid—or corrosive—content, leaving the impression that gifted artists sell out sooner or later. “Today’s musical superstars seem more interested in hawking their clothing lines and name-brand perfumes than in any meaningful form of political action,” magazine editor Leslie Bennetts wrote in a Los Angeles Times essay. 

Unlike Dylan and others, quite a few musicians—renowned or scarcely known—have successfully struggled to retain creative control over their work. They continue to resist the corporate juggernauts that routinely flatten talent into the pap of pop. 

A new development to celebrate is the rise of the Country Joe Band. While standing the test of time, music from the ensemble group resonates profoundly each day as young soldiers do their best to survive in a faraway country:

And pound their feet into the sand of shores they’ve never seen 
Delegates from the western land to join the death machine 
And we send cards and letters. 

With Country Joe McDonald’s and other musicians’ return to public space at a time when many U.S. soldiers are being killed, an old question is also new: What are we fighting for? 

And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death 
Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath 
And we send prayers and praises.