-One thing that's been interesting, obviously,
and I know you've been asked about it, is this Trump guy.
You know President Trump, yeah?
-Heard of him. -I don't know.
I'm not a political guy.
I don't know if you like him or don't like him,
but he was using your song earlier this year,
and many people found that to be, frankly, hilarious.
And can you explain to us why that would be funny
in some twisted way?
-Well, I wrote the song "Fortunate Son" basically --
now you got to remember, way back in the '60s
I was drafted and went into the Army Reserves,
which I was in for three years.
Therefore -- that's a great, big subject,
but I'll just tell you that most young people in the late
'60s were against the Vietnam War.
I mean, it was pretty much what you might call
a left-sided or liberal point of view.
Kids did not support the Vietnam War.
And, also, there was a draft,
which meant that many of the young men
were going to be conscripted into the military
perhaps against their will.
So, that's sort of the background of it.
So, you know, people like me who didn't support the war
and thought it was kind of a stupid foreign policy,
you might say -- and I believe time has shown that it was.
But, anyway, and we were never really explained
exactly why are we fighting this war?
And I don't think anyone still knows, really.
So, that was my position, but I was drafted.
And at some point, you stop kicking and screaming,
and you do your duty.
I'm trying to make light of it,
but there were millions of guys just like me who then went ahead
and because we love our country, you know,
regardless of how you feel personally,
you are an American, and that's what you do.
So, having got past that part, and I'm in a rock 'n' roll band,
and you're starting to notice, let's say, well-heeled parents
getting their kids out of that situation.
You know, I didn't know anybody like that.
And so, you know, we called them draft dodgers.
I mean, I was a little ambivalent about all of that,
but when you specifically see some senator
plucking his son out of the way of the draft
because his doctor wrote him an excuse and called it,
oh, bone spurs or something like that, you know?
You go, "Hey, man, that's just not fair."
I mean, there's a sense of fairness about this
that really upset me.
And so, that spurred on my motivation,
you might say, to write the song.
But I also kind of addressed, you know,
again, this class thing -- rich people not paying taxes,
which you heard about even back in the '60s.
And even though I made $12, I was paying $3
or $4 of it in taxes.
That's just kind of what you had to do.
We all -- you know, death and taxes.
It's kind of unavoidable.
So, that made me angry, too,
and that was sort of the main thrust
of my song "Fortunate Son."
I called it "Fortunate Son" because it was somebody
that seemed to kind of have it made.
Lo and behold, I did not know Donald Trump in 1968 or '69,
but all these years later, when he became president,
you kind of -- wow, you heard about these different things,
and he seemed to be the exact person
I was writing the song about,
which, you know, that sat there for a couple years
until he started having rallies.
Then it became funny.