Here’s an interesting article about the same musician: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-07-21/why-woody-guthries-guitar-was-a-fascist-killer.html
Relevant paragraph:
Woody Guthrie’s guitar didn’t kill fascists because it fired bullets. It killed by neutralizing the fascists. Music, like culture, has the power to defeat right-wing extremists and their antidemocratic ideas rooted in xenophobia, racism, homophobia and sexism. Guthrie fought using ideas, language, music and the shared desire to build a better future together.
Before anyone thinks Woody was some kind of pacifist, they should check out his songs “Miss Pavlichenko” or “Jarama Valley”.
Music then. Internet today.
People should listen to the entirety of Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land rather than the part that’s excerpted that makes it sound super patriotic rah rah America.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
People say it’s against all private property but it only explicitly criticizes private ownership of land. That does not imply Communism, see Georgism.
…is what I would say if I didn’t always twist the lyrics to praise the compact disc 💿
How I sing the song. Warning: Cringe
💿 My pit and your land,
💿 your pit and my land,
💿 from err’r correction
💿 to the sampling theorem
💿 From the Red Book’s premise
💿 to the bitstream coders
💿 CD was made by Sony and Philips.
💿 My laser’s gliding
💿 on the spiral pathway,
💿 my cradle keeps it
💿 pointed the right way.
💿 Plastic is never
💿 made ideally
💿 but wobbles are no problem for CD.
💿 There may be dust bits
💿 that try to fool me,
💿 disks can be tainted,
💿 varying light intensity
💿 But the extra data
💿 carry everything
💿 I need to get the music error-free
💿 Audiophiles
💿 are total dickheads,
💿 claiming they can hear
💿 the “discrete DAC steps”
💿 But Shannon proved that
💿 a low-pass filter
💿 Makes samples match the input perfectly
💿 My pit and your land,
💿 your pit and my land,
💿 from err’r correction
💿 to the sampling theorem
💿 From the Red Book’s promise
💿 to the bitstream coders
💿 This was made by Sony and Philips.
Scotland and Norway have the right to roam, where there are land owners but they do not have the right to keep you off their land. As far as I’m concerned that’s the bare minimum for a decency, even though it’s a long shot from communism.
But Guthrie was a communist. This was before Stalinism and a lot of the bad connotations given to communism since - I doubt he would have embraced much of what have happened in the name of communism. But he was a union man.
This was before Stalinism and a lot of the bad connotations given to communism since - I doubt he would have embraced much of what have happened in the name of communism.
Well, Guthrie was actually alive at the same time as Stalin so we don’t actually have to speculate on that. In reality, Guthrie praised Stalin, even going so far as praising the Soviet invasion of Poland, and criticizing the US for providing supplies to Finland during the Winter War. It actually wasn’t that uncommon for left-wing people in the West to support Stalin at the time, though some, for example, Pete Seeger, later changed their views. Guthrie never did, even during the height of the Cold War, when McCarthyism meant he got blacklisted, he was still saying stuff like, he hoped the communists won in the Korean War, and he never apologized for or recanted his views on Stalin.
Not to forget the verse about property rights:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
Sign was painted, saying “private property”
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me
So… he climbed the wall, checked the other side, and decided that the inside area was “for you and me” because the inside of the wall didn’t say otherwise?
Interesting story. Dropkick Murphys (Boston-Irish punk band) got their first national hit by doing a punk version of “Shipping Out to Boston,” which was a Woody Guthrie taperoom-floor forgotten song. They also just lost one of their lead singer/songwriters last year.
They were trying to figure out what direction to go in, when Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter called them up to say she had found a bunch of other scraps and notes, wondering if they had any interest in putting together an album.
They said “fuck it, sure” and made an album called “This Machine Still Kills Fascists.” It’s not quite my cup of tea, but it resonated with a lot of people. If you’re interested in Guthrie’s music it’s definitely worth a listen. Modernized medium-talent version of his b-sides, basically.
I fucking love Murphys, but they even admit that they’re not super talented. Ken Casey once said he didn’t even learn to play bass until their second album.
I play bass. You mean to tell me there are folk who actually know how to play?
Shipping out to Boston is not even forgotten in the taperoom - in all likelihood Guthrie never recorded it.
There’s a bunch of songs Guthrie wrote but never recorded. His estate keeps track of all of them, recorded or not, on woodyguthrie.org.
Wilco teamed up with singer Billy Bragg to release three volumes of previously unreleased Guthrie songs under the title Mermaid Avenue. They’re amazing albums.
One of the most interesting songs, and related to this post, is titled “All You Fascists”. After the release of the Wilco version in 2000, they discovered a wartime Guthrie recording from the BBC, so we now have access to the original as well. But the cover version was released first.
The whole Mermaid Avenue series is worth a spin. Lots of fun upbeat stuff as well, not only about defeating fascism.
That is a really interesting story! I’m sure if he were still alive he’d be very happy to hear some of his works completed.
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.
— Woody Guthrie on copyright
If you are interested in watching one of the most awkward movies ever, you should check out Alice’s Restaurant, based on a song by Woody Guthrie’s son, Arthur Guthrie.
But that’s not the name of the restaurant, that’s just the name of the song
Thanks. I use voice to text and really need to proofread more often.
I swear, voice to text was better on Android 12 than after it got the big upgrade on Android 13 (if I’m recalling the versions correctly). Though it was still an issue then.
Edit calling: Correcting voice to text grammar
