‘Country’ Joe McDonald, an iconic ’60s rock star who made waves with a four-letter rebuke of the Vietnam War, died on Sunday, March 7, 2026.
Joe McDonald, who performed with his band Country Joe and the Fish, died of health complications from Parkinson’s disease in Berkeley, California.
He was known for being anti-Vietnam War and singing a world famous song, I-feel-like-I’m-fixing-to-diewhich literally became an anthem for protesters in America.
At the time he wrote the lyrics to the hit, McDonald was the co-leader of his newly formed band County Joe and the Fishand before performing the song, he uttered a unique “FISH” chant.
The famous song goes, “Give me an F, give me an I, give me an S, give me an H.”
McDonald once told Associated Press in 2019 the reason behind this song saying, “Some people alluded to peace and stuff [at Woodstock]but I was talking about Vietnam.”
Calling the opening song, an expression of our anger and frustration over the Vietnam War, which killed us, literally killed us.”
To the surprise of many, McDonald wrote the text down on paper in less than an hour in 1965, the same year that then-President Lyndon Johnson began sending troops to Vietnam.
Joe McDonald was born in Washington, DC, in 1942 and was raised in El Monte, California.
He began writing songs as a teenager when he mastered three classic American music genres, folk, blues and country songs on the guitar.
McDonald was married four times, most recently to Kathy McDonald, with whom he had five children and four grandchildren.
