Woody Guthrie - Champion Of Labor
Woody Guthrie - Talking Dustbowl Blues
"I've always believed that if that stew had been just a little bit thinner some of our senators coulda seen through it."
Please listen to the whole song. It's really funny. This song was the inspiration for Bob Dylan's Talking Blues and "Subterranean Homesick Blues". And Talking Blues still lives today in Hiphop.
Arlo and Woody Guthrie - Pastures Of Plenty
When I republished my earlier Woody Guthrie diary tracing the story of Tom Joad, as told and retold, BOHICA sent me this quote.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you’ve not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I’d starve to death before I’d sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.
– Woody Guthrie
As a songwriter I always put my craft first. I tell people just because I sing a song doesn't mean I agree with every word and just because I write a song I don't necessarily believe every word. My job is to write the best possible song.
Reading the quote above we see thast Woody Guthrie put the message first. That is there was no separation between Woody Guthrie the singer and Woody Guthrie the person. And Woody Guthrie the person was all about honesty, integrity, helping the downtrodden and promoting the working man and woman.
He sang about the working man.
Woody guthrie - John Henry
"The captain said to John Henry
I'm gonna bring that steam drill round"
He wasn't afraid to tackle difficult topics.
Jesus Christ - Woody Guthrie
"If Jesus was to preach like he did in Galilee
They'd lay Jesus Christ in his grave."
And he was always on the side of ordinary people. The common man. The working man. The people he loved.
Please post your favorite Woody Guthrie stories and songs in the comments.
Thanks,
Hairy Larry