Country Joe and The Fish - Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine

About The Band: The group's name is derived from leftist politics; "Country Joe" was a popular name for Joseph Stalin in the 1940s, while "the fish" refers to Mao Tse Dung's statement that the true revolutionary must "swim among the people as a fish." The group began with the nucleus of "Country Joe" McDonald (lead vocals) and Barry "The Fish" Melton (lead guitar), recording and performing for the "Teach-In" protests against the Vietnam War in 1965. Co-founders McDonald and Melton added musicians as needed over the life of the band. By 1967, the group included Gary "Chicken" Hirsh (drums) (born in 1940, in Chicago, Illinois); David Cohen (keyboards) (born 8 April 1942, in Brooklyn, New York) and Bruce Barthol (bass) (born 11 November 1947 in Berkeley, California). The 1967 lineup lasted only two years, and by the 1969 music festival Woodstock, the lineup included Greg 'Duke' Dewey (drums), Mark Kapner (keyboards) and Doug Metzler (bass).

The band came to perform an early example of psychedelic music. The LP "Electric Music for the Mind and Body" was very influential on early FM Radio in 1967. Long sets of psychedelic tunes like "Section 43", "Bass Strings", "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine", "Janis" (for and about Janis Joplin) and "Grace" (for singer Grace Slick) (all released on Vanguard Records) were often played back to back on KSAN and KMPX in San Francisco and progressive rock stations around the country. Their first album charted at #39 on September 23, 1967, their 2nd album at #67 on February 3, 1968, and their third at #23 on August 31, 1968. Country Joe and The Fish were regulars at Fillmore West and East and Chet Helms' Avalon Ballroom. They were billed with such groups as Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Butterfly. They played at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. In 1971 the band appeared in a Western film starring Don Johnson as an outlaw gang called the Crackers. The film, entitled Zachariah, was written by the Firesign Theatre and was billed as "The First Electric Western". They also appeared in the George Lucas film More American Graffiti and in the 1971 Roger Corman film Gas-s-s-s.

Electric Music For The Mind And Body, Country Joe and The Fish's debut album, was one of the first psychedelic albums to come out of San Francisco in 1967. Many timed their acid trips to peak during Country Joe and The Fish performances at The Avalon or The Fillmore, where they were frequent performers.

Tracks from the LP, especially "Section 43", "Grace", and "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" were played on progressive FM rock stations like KSAN and KMPX in San Francisco, often back-to-back. A famous version of the song "Love" was performed at the 1969 Woodstock Festival

Lyrics: She hides in an attic concealed on a shelf
Behind volumes of literature based on herself
And runs across the pages like some tiny elf
Knowing that it's hard to find
Stuff way back in her mind,
Winds up spending all of her time
Trying to memorize every line

Sweet Lorraine, ah, sweet Lorraine.
Sweet lady of death wants me to die
So she can come sit by my bedside and sigh
And wipe away the tears from all my friends eyes
Then softly she will explain
Just exactly who was to blame
For causing me to go insane
And finally blow out my brain,
Sweet Lorraine, ah, sweet Lorraine.

Well you know that it's a shame and a pity
You were raised up in the city
And you never learned nothing 'bout country ways,
Ah, 'bout country ways.

The joy of life she dresses in black
With celestial secrets engraved in her back
And her face keeps flashing that she's got the knack,
But you know when you look into her eyes
All she's learned she's had to memorize
And the only way you'll ever get her high
Is to let her do her thing and then watch you die,
Sweet Lorraine, ah, sweet Lorraine.

Now she's the one who gives us all those magical things
And reads us stories out of the I Ching,
Then she passes out a whole new basket of rings
That when you put on your hand
Makes you one of the Angel Band
And gives you the power to be a man,
But what it does for her you never quite understand
Sweet Lorraine, ah, sweet Lorraine.

Well you know that it's a shame and a pity
You were raised up in the city
And you never learned nothing 'bout country ways,
Oh 'bout country ways, oh 'bout country ways,
Yeah, about country ways, oh, country ways ...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Leftist
• Politics
• Country
• Joe
• The
• Fish
• Summer
• Of
• Love
• Organ
• Electric
• McDonald
• Bary
• Melton
• LSD
• Marijuana
• Woodstock

[oldrocker1951]

CJ & Fish and/or Ultimate Spinach and a couple a hits of 'blotter' or "orange osley" and we were 'there and everywhere'! The late 60's and early 70's were the absolute best of rock--nothing like it ever again! To be in the late teen years in the late 60's again--I'd do it again in a heartbeat!!!!!!!!

[okmama]

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out...Those were the days of Real Music.

[MegaKegHead]

Hmm...was Martha Lorraine trying to find 12-21-12 reading I Ching?

[animascat]

@animascat had an older friend who had a volkswagon bug and 8 track player four other clulesss pretenders and i would cruise high as hell around diggin every minute of it played electric music for the mind and body over and over

[animascat]

@WickedTornado i was in junior high and didn't look at things politicly. great album throughout. listened to this over and over on 8 track

[dougerrr]

never ate the orange ozley... had the green and the purple.... in so cal we had orange county sunshine.. was made by the brotherhood out of laguna beach

[WickedTornado]

I grew up with this. Pretty sure it was a song about pro-communism. Country Joe McDonald was an unabashed communist, to the best of my knowledge. And the lyric "country ways" = communism. Personally, I love the song, because it brings back great memories of Jr. High and High School....but hate the message in the song. But those San Francisco bands at that time....they all kind of had that bent. Of course, they were all in their mid-20's and thought they knew everything. Ha. 

[Rosscara58]

i am a bit young to remember this . but drop a tab and you think you know it word for word. peace man, down with the paki,s

[WickedTornado]

Ohhh man, this takes me back to '67 (jr. high) in hot, dusty much-smaller-than-now Tucson Arizona. I always dug this tune, but it never got played enough. On another note, I'm trying to find a tune that I was positive was done by Quicksilver Mess. Service, but there seems to be a female singing also in the chorus...the main repetitive lines being "come back baby, comeback, ....come back baby, comeback....to meeeeee. Having a tough time finding it, it's probably named something else. Thanks!

[MegaKegHead]

KSHE daily

[MrWildcountry]

East,West,Wherever,,