Woody Guthrie at 100: Ten Songs That Still Power Modern Social Causes
forbes.com | Jul 14th 2012
Woody Guthrie died at 55 back in 1967 and in truth, his voice had mainly disappeared from the American scene more than a decade earlier. That Bob Dylan welded his own 60s fame and meteoric talent to the thin hobo muse of the original Dust Bowl troubadour is a true gift to the generations who didn't follow folk music in the 40s and 50s, because it brought Guthrie's hardscrabble stories and cross-country authenticity to ears that may have avoided the niche of the folk purists. Certainly Dylan's identification with Guthrie and his celebrated visits to the sick and – at the time – nearly forgotten songwriter pushed the Guthrie canon to the next group of musicians who followed Dylan as their muse. From Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello, to the Byrds, John Fogerty, Johnny Cash, Beck, Emmylou Harris, U2, Lou Reed, Steve Earle, Paul Simon, the Grateful Dead, Billy Bragg, Richie Havens, Ani DiFranco, John Mellencamp, Jeff Tweedy, Ry Cooder, Flatt and Scruggs, and The Band (among many others), covering Woody Guthrie has become a badge of authenticity, a sign of knowledge of our shared past, and chance to blast through some righteous political messaging on acoustic guitar.
It's because of that tenacious strain throughout popular music (with a necessary nod of thanks here to the folk revival led by Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and others and bolstered with familial fortitude and exploration by Arlo Guthrie) that Woody Guthrie's view of America remains so vibrant today, on the 100th anniversary of his birth in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. Guthrie's music and stories are baseline documents for citizens movements, social entrepreneurs, social causes, labor organizers, and change-obsessed rabble-rousers up and down the turnpike of the American social commons. That's because, as Dylan said, "the songs themselves were really beyond category. They had the infinite sweep of humanity in them."
They're plain-talking songs all, set to two or three chords on guitar, and they tell stories of both desperation and hope, hunger and aspiration – all from a deeply American communitarian viewpoint that has its roots in the New Deal, the labor movement, populism, and both Walt Whitman's romantic vision of America and Ralph Waldo Emerson's "transcendental" notion of the one big American soul. That Guthrie was also an idealistic follower of the Communist Party of the United States of America in the 1930s and a religious man who never lost his love for the Bible of his Oklahoma childhood merely adds to soup of spirited unorthodoxy that defined his voice. As John Steinbeck wrote of Guthrie, "there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit."
They are songs for and about outsiders. And though the U.S. remains an aspirational society in terms of both wealth and social standing, most people are still outsiders. Since the Great Recession of 2008 and its echoes of the 1930s, social movements both online and off, have become more earnest in using the language of the outsiders, words Woody Guthrie worked into his songs of the 30s and 40s. When Tom Morello led a virtually army of guitarists through the streets of Manhattan earlier this year in one of the last big public moments of the Occupy Wall Street movement (to date) it was a given that one of the tunes the musical collective played was Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land, the classic alternative national anthem. What's fascinating is that in recent times, the so-called "lost verses" of that iconic tune have started to reappear in public performance – and certainly Morello is no slouch in putting forth what was long considered too radical to play:
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
One hundred years after his birth, Woody Guthrie has more cultural influence then he ever did in life – and more social currency on this recently-wired social commons of ours than he did in analog days of concert halls, well-worn vinyl, and downstairs folk clubs. Starting with a great cover of This Land Is Your Land by Morello, Wayne Kramer of the MC5 and others in support of the Wisconsin workers last year, here are the 10 Guthrie songs that I think still matter the most to modern social movements.
1. This Land Is Your Land
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kknr-advKkg
I'm pretty sure this is just how Guthrie would have intended this tune, written on a snowy day in New York City in 1940, to be played in public.
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2. Plane Wreck At Los Gatos
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHbTWJ9tjnw
Also known as Deportees, this is the ultimate song about the multi-generational battle over American immigration, performed here by Arlo Guthrie and EmmyLou Harris.
3. Slip Knot
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3HTdndZec
Another straight-forward social commentary on capital punishment and lynching, also known (and performed) as Hang Knot – this is Guthrie's original recording.
4. Vigilante Man
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tVqmoLC6po
An iconic song about mob justice and the struggle of ordinary citizens, performed here as a stinging rocker by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
5. Hard Travel
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1CwZCECHms
Bob Dylan created his own personal myth of rambling around and the hobo life, and it's based on Woody Guthrie's storytelling – and this song is an archetypal example of life on the American road.
6. Worried Man Blues
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUw1c_0RLW8
A song about poverty, prison culture, and powerlessness – here's a fantastic version by Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash from Nashville in 1970.
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7. Hobo's Lullaby
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWirXolK5mw
EmmyLou Harris has made this one of her signature tunes, and for good reason.
8. Do Re Mi
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IJweR1d0dE
9. 1913 Massacre
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJWfHRcdSAk
A terrifying story of union organizing, violence, political power and fire – this version's by Ramblin' Jack Elliott.
10. So Long, It's Been Good to Know You
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqiblXFlZuk
Here's Guthrie on poor people moving on, from his original recording. Given the killing summer heat on the American plains this year, and the continuing discussion over climate change, this is a song for 2012.
Original Page: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2012/07/14/woody-guthrie-at-100-ten-songs-that-still-power-modern-social-causes/#
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Victor Cuvo, Attorney at Law
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