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Photo: Jason Laure/Woodfin Camp/Woodfin Camp/Time Life Pictures/Getty

Country Joe

I get kind of mystical about my solo performance at Woodstock. I think I was fated to do it. I was hanging around, and I was just filling time, singing a few country & western songs and folk songs. Then I did "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" — the "F-U-C-K" cheer — and the rest is history. From the first response to "Give me an f," when they all stopped talking and looked at me and yelled, "F," I knew there was no turning back.

I walked around through the crowd and over to the Hog Farm, where they were serving food. It was a very mellow, happy crowd. I wasn't aware of any hard drugs — opiates, cocaine — at all. There was hashish and psychedelics, but there were none of the drugs that tend to make people violent or antisocial. All the drug taking was friendly and cordial. Too many people read serious political and sociological meanings into the event, way beyond its significance. I think it was a pretty innocent gathering from any point of view.

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