'Country' Joe McDonald, Vietnam War protest icon dies aged 84

'Country' Joe McDonald, an iconic rock star of the 60s who made waves with a four-letter reprimand to the Vietnam War, died on Sunday, March 7, 2026.

Joe McDonald, who performed with his band Country Joe and the Fish, passed away from health complications of 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-Fixin-To-Die Rag, which literally became an anthem for protesters in America.

At the time he penned the lyrics for the hitmaker, McDonald was co-leader of his newly founded band Country Joe and the Fish, and before performing the song, he stated a unique “F-I-S-H” chant.

That famous chant goes, "Give me an F, give me an I, give me an S, give me an H."

McDonald once told the Associated Press in 2019 the reason behind this chant, saying, “Some people alluded to peace and stuff [at Woodstock], but I was talking about Vietnam.”

Calling the opening chant, an expression of our anger and frustration over the Vietnam War, which was killing us, literally killing us.”

To the surprise of many, McDonald wrote down the lyrics on paper in less than an hour in 1965, the same year when the then president, Lyndon Johnson, began sending troops to Vietnam.

Joe McDonald was born in Washington, D.C., in 1942 and was brought up in El Monte, California.

He started writing songs as a teenager, when he mastered three classic American music genres, folk, blues, and country songs on guitar.

McDonald was married four times, most recently to Kathy McDonald with whom he had five children and four grandchildren.