| "Draft Dodger Rag" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Phil Ochs | |
| from the album I Ain't Marching Anymore | |
| Published | 1964 |
| Released | 1965 |
| Genre | Protest song, folk |
| Length | 2:07 |
| Label | Elektra |
| Songwriter(s) | Phil Ochs |
| Producer(s) | Jac Holzman |
| "The Draft Dodger Rag" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Pete Seeger | ||||
| from the album Dangerous Songs!? | ||||
| B-side | "Guantanamera" | |||
| Released | 1966 | |||
| Genre | Country folk | |||
| Length | 2:10 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Phil Ochs | |||
| Producer(s) | John Hammond | |||
| Pete Seeger singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Draft Dodger Rag" is a satirical anti-war song by Phil Ochs, a U.S. protest singer from the 1960s known for being a harsh critic of the American military industrial complex. Originally released on his 1965 album, I Ain't Marching Anymore, "Draft Dodger Rag" quickly became an anthem of the anti-Vietnam War movement.[1]
Ochs wrote "Draft Dodger Rag" as American involvement in the Vietnam War was beginning to grow.[2] The song is sung from the perspective of a gung-ho young man who has been drafted. When he reports for duty, however, the young man recites a list of reasons why he can't serve, including poor vision, flat feet, a ruptured spleen, allergies and asthma, back pain, addiction "to a thousand drugs", his college enrollment, his disabled aunt, and the fact that he carries a purse,[2][3] very likely referring to homosexuality, given homosexuality was a way to dodge the draft.[4] (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][5]
"Draft Dodger Rag" was the first prominent satirical song about draft evasion in the Vietnam War.[6] One writer says its humor can be appreciated on its own level, without respect to the political message of the song.[7] Another says it added "much-needed humour" to the protest song genre.[8]
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.[9]
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.[10][11]
- ^ Perone, James E. (2004). Music of the Counterculture Era. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 40. ISBN 0-313-32689-4.
- ^ a b c Dean, Maury (2003). Rock 'n' Roll Gold Rush: A Singles Un-Cyclopedia. New York: Algora Publishing. p. 78. ISBN 0-87586-207-1.
- ^ a b Foley, Michael S. (2003). Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 0-8078-5436-0.
- ^ Stilwell, Blake (2021-04-02). "11 ways people dodged the Vietnam draft". We Are The Mighty. Retrieved 2025-01-02.
- ^ Ochs, Phil (1964). Songs of Phil Ochs. New York: Appleseed Music. p. 11. OCLC 41480512.
- ^ Perone, James E. (2001). Songs of the Vietnam Conflict. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 29. ISBN 0-313-31528-0.
- ^ Perone (2001). Songs of the Vietnam Conflict. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 90. ISBN 9780313315282.
- ^ Simmonds, Jeremy (2008) [2006]. The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-55652-754-8.
- ^ Ochs, Phil (1965). I Ain't Marching Anymore (Media notes). Elektra. EKL-287/EKS-7287.
- ^ Cohen, David (1999). Phil Ochs: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 232. ISBN 0-313-31029-7.
- ^ Schumacher, Michael (1996). There But for Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs. New York: Hyperion. p. 179. ISBN 0-7868-6084-7.