Woody Guthrie

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Woody with his "fascist-killing machine".

Woody Guthrie (1912 — 1967) was a American folk singer, famous for his left-wing songs such as "This Land Is Your Land."

Born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie in 1912, he left school aged 16 and wandered across America with his guitar and harmonica, singing as he went. He often sang for labour unions and immigrant workers, and wrote for communist newspapers. He also sang the praises of the massive construction projects of the thirties, which brought jobs for many people.

Famously, his guitar was adorned with the slogan This machine kills fascists.

He didn't care about copyright, releasing most of his songs into the public domain. The copyright notice on "This Land Is Your Land" reads:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

Contents

[edit] Opposition

As a communist sympathiser (although never a member as he refused to renounce his religion) Woody Guthrie was of course blacklisted by the McCarthyites. He and other folk singers such as Pete Seeger found it very hard to get work in the years after World War II.

[edit] Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame

Guthrie was inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. His son Arlo, accepting the award, noted that the poor peoples' champion was being fêted at a $1,000-per-table dinner from which the general public was barred, saying "I don't know where Woody would be tonight if he were alive, but I can guarantee you it wouldn't be here." Arlo, a registered Republican [1] was probably more at home in "a $1,000-per-table dinner from which the general public was barred."

[edit] Songs

Do Re Mi

(Not all of them, he wrote hundreds!)

  • "This Land Is Your Land"
  • "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh"
  • "Grand Coulee Dam"
  • "If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi" (see image at right)
  • "Dust Bowl Refugee"
  • "Vigilante Man"
  • "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad", frequently found on the Grateful Dead's playlist
  • "Ramblin Round", covered by Linda Ronstadt
  • "Hard traveling "- Lonnie Donigan's ancient version on Utube [1]
  • "I Ain't Got No Home"
  • "We Shall Be Free"
  • "Talkin' Fishin' Blues"

[edit] Death and legacy

Guthrie died not long after his son Arlo came to fame in his own right, due to the song and movie Alice's Restaurant (and indeed, was featured on his deathbed in the movie). He died from Huntington's disease, a truly nasty genetic disease that causes progressive neural degeneration, dementia, and severe motor problems.

For a book commemorating his death, Bob Dylan was asked to write a few lines and ended up producing the 9 page ode Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie.

Dylan had shamelessly ripped off Guthrie's lyrics in some of his early songs; not that Guthrie would have cared in the least. Song to Woody is the penultimate track on his eponymous debut album (1962).

[edit] Quotes

Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
– Pretty Boy Floyd (alluded to by Dylan in Talkin' New York on his debut album)

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees".
– Deportee/Plane Wreck at Los Gatos

[edit] External links

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