Draft Dodger Rag

{{Infobox song

| name = Draft Dodger Rag

| cover =

| alt =

| type =

| artist = Phil Ochs

| album = I Ain't Marching Anymore

| EP =

| written =

| published = 1964

| released = 1965

| recorded =

| studio =

| venue =

| genre = Protest song, folk

| length = 2:07

| label = Elektra

| writer = Phil Ochs

| composer =

| lyricist =

| producer = Jac Holzman

| prev_title =

| prev_year =

| title =

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}}

{{Infobox song

| name = The Draft Dodger Rag

| cover =

| alt =

| type = single

| artist = Pete Seeger

| album = Dangerous Songs!?

| B-side = Guantanamera

| released = 1966

| recorded =

| studio =

| venue =

| genre = Country folk

| length = 2:10

| label = Columbia

| writer = Phil Ochs

| producer = John Hammond

| prev_title = Healing River

| prev_year = 1965

| next_title = Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

| next_year = 1967

}}

__NOTOC__

"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.{{cite book |last1=Perone |first1=James E. |title=Music of the Counterculture Era |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6dw1soxFdm8C&pg=PA40 |year=2004 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=0-313-32689-4 |page=40 }}

Ochs wrote "Draft Dodger Rag" as American involvement in the Vietnam War was beginning to grow.{{cite book |last=Dean |first=Maury |title=Rock 'n' Roll Gold Rush: A Singles Un-Cyclopedia |year=2003 |publisher=Algora Publishing |location=New York |isbn=0-87586-207-1 |page=78 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lJS4EArRBwoC&pg=PA78 }} 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,{{cite book |last1=Foley |first1=Michael S. |title=Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NlzvUKVoSr4C&pg=PA72 |year=2003 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill, N.C. |isbn=0-8078-5436-0 |pages=72–73 }} very likely referring to homosexuality, given homosexuality was a way to dodge the draft.{{Cite web |last=Stilwell |first=Blake |date=2021-04-02 |title=11 ways people dodged the Vietnam draft |url=https://www.wearethemighty.com/lists/vietnam-draft-dodger/ |access-date=2025-01-02 |website=We Are The Mighty |language=en-US}} (One historian of the draft resistance movement wrote that Ochs "described nearly every available escape from conscription".) 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".{{cite book |last=Ochs |first=Phil |title=Songs of Phil Ochs |year=1964 |publisher=Appleseed Music |location=New York |oclc=41480512 |page=11 }}

"Draft Dodger Rag" was the first prominent satirical song about draft evasion in the Vietnam War.{{cite book |last1=Perone |first1=James E. |title=Songs of the Vietnam Conflict |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HHQqoUcbd8gC&pg=PA29 |year=2001 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=0-313-31528-0 |page=29 }} One writer says its humor can be appreciated on its own level, without respect to the political message of the song.{{cite book |last1=Perone |title=Songs of the Vietnam Conflict |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HHQqoUcbd8gC&pg=PA90 |page=90 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9780313315282 }} Another says it added "much-needed humour" to the protest song genre.{{cite book |last1=Simmonds |first1=Jeremy |title=The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bMBf3TYZigQC&pg=RA1-PA87 |year=2008 |orig-year=2006 |publisher=Chicago Review Press |location=Chicago |isbn=978-1-55652-754-8 |page=87 }}

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.{{cite AV media notes |title=I Ain't Marching Anymore |title-link=I Ain't Marching Anymore |year=1965 |first=Phil |last=Ochs |author-link=Phil Ochs |publisher=Elektra |id=EKL-287/EKS-7287 }}

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.{{cite book |last=Cohen |first=David |title=Phil Ochs: A Bio-Bibliography |year=1999 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=0-313-31029-7 |page=232 }}{{cite book |last=Schumacher |first=Michael |title=There But for Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs |year=1996 |publisher=Hyperion |location=New York |isbn=0-7868-6084-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/therebutforfortu00schu/page/179 179] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/therebutforfortu00schu/page/179 }}