Not sure where I should put this Woody
Listenup, young’uns and non-US global members
I’m going to talk a bit about Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), Folk Music, and the heart and soul of what America was. If you have never listened to an hour or so of Woody (Not his son Arlo) Guthrie, you owe owe owe it to yourselves to do so. The time period was unique, the country was in change, and it’s heartbeat was chronicled by Woody.
I was in the car a lot this weekend. I asked Siri to play Woody Guthrie on Apple Music. Although I knew many of the songs, others I did not, and I was floored by the sheer heart of the music.
Woody came of age as the Great Depression hit America. Millions were out of work. We did not have a social net. People made do. After the election of Roosevelt, the Federal Governement started to help. The CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps was founded, providing jobs for many.
The politics of the era are echoed today. Rachael Maddow - whatever you think of her on TV, is a consummate historian in podcasts. Her Ultra - season 1 documents the pro-facist currents in the US prior to WW2. Season 2 takes up the narrative into the Joe McCarthy anti-communist period. I recommend these also for those interested. Many of Guthrie’s songs in his young adult period reflect what was happening around him, in the context of a deeply patriotic world view.
Lindbergh is one of the songs I hadn’t heard (Link to YouTube of song), and it moved me - the last lyrics - if you know American history. Charles Lindbergh - the aviator hero was also a Nazi sympathizer. Woody says in his closing lines
So I’m gonna tell you people, if Hitler’s gonna be beat
The common working people have got to take the seat
In Washington, Washington
And I’m gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks:
They say America First, but they mean America Next
In Washington, Washington
Perhaps Woody’s best known song, This Land is Your Land was written as a protest against the rah rah patriotic songs we usually hear. And today I heard some of the original lyrics that I knew, but aren’t common on your local radio station rendition
As I was walkin’ - I saw a sign there
And that sign said “No trespassin’”
But on the other side … it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me
Sly and slightly subversive. I love the other side of the No trespassin’ sign.
This is music that just doesn’t get played that often these days. I heard it a fair amount in the the 60’s and early 70’s, but also in my Parents’ house as a child. I can’t find the attribution but I recall a commedian explaining radio in the early 60s. FM and AM. FM stands for Folk Music, AM for Awful Music.
I can’t reccomend enough that if you have never heard Woody singing Woody you give it a try.
Hey Siri/Google/Alexa Play Woody Guthrie.
Glossary for the young and/or global
Columbia - The Columbia River, where the Grand Coulee Dam was built between 1933 and 1942. The greatest thing that man had ever done.
Dust Bowl, Dust - reference to a climate event in the 1930s affecting the great plains states and parts of western Canada. A drought. Serious. Farms dried up. People had to move away. People from Oklahoma migrated across the plains to California, and were known as Okies. See Peaches and Wine.
Fascists - Generally Hitler, Mussolini and their regiemes. Less frequently, companies that today would be considered entrepreneurial mid-caps or smaller large caps that tended to put profit over safety or quality of life concerns. This was another age. Quality of life was rarely on the radar.
Migrants - Not to be confused with today’s immigrants. Migrants were often 2nd generation American farm workers. Displaced from family farms in the great plains, they followed the crops, picking peaches in California, lettuce, moving North to Cherries in Michigan, and Apples in the mid-Atlantic. In Guthrie’s music some of these people were deeply patriotic, moved by the sheer beauty of the American countryside a hundred or so years ago.
Peaches and Wine - reference to agricultural production of California in the 30s on. Workers tended grapes and picked peaches. See Migrants.
Red River - the Red River of the South, flowing across the Texas Panhandle. Site of the song Red River Valley,
Relief - Welfare payments. Also know as “the Dole”. Lots of shaming for those who needed help.