Woody

July 14 is the 100^th birthday of Woody Guthrie and as we go into this Memorial Day-to-July4 time you are likely to hear about this repeatedly in the media.  Moreover, Guthrie is likely to be treated as heroic, which leaves me a bit bemused.  Born in Okemah in Okfuskee county (You’re a true Okie if you can pronounce that quickly and show it on a map.) He died of untreated Huntington’s disease in 1967, which causes dementia and absurd behavior.  An avowed communist, the Communist Party USA wouldn’t accept him since he was a loose cannon.  He became famous as the “Troubadour of the Dustbowl” when he went on a cross-country trip with some Oklahoma farmers trying to relocate in San Joaquin Valley and wrote many songs about it.  Because of his music, the notion was encouraged that Okies fled in mass to California during the dust bowl (an enormous factual error), but with Steinbeck’s book it became ingrained in the national consciousness and if you try to argue the facts people will dispute you like you are a traitor to Well-known Facts About America.  He went on to produce ballads full of blues for the FDR propaganda films that were used to argue that Western Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas  should be made into a national grasslands and the people run off the land.  Such was progressivism.  But I could never understand where progressivism had any progress. Woody also wrote 174 columns for the communist party newspaper, Daily Worker.  Later he sired 8 kids from 3 women and had a terrific wanderlust leaving families behind. He eventually went to New York City where he was heralded as a true down-to-earth American from Oklahoma, unlike most of the other communists there. 

He is best known for ‘This Land Is Your Land’ a catchy tune and I-love-America lyrics.  The story of how this song came about is an eye-roller of irony.  Woodrow Wilson Guthrie wrote the song in 1940 as an asinine  spoof of “God Bless America”.  A communist atheist, he naturally hated both the lyrics and Kate Smith, the Songbird of the South who later sang it as a patriotic moment during World War II.  So he wrote a sarcastic cynical ballad in which he borrowed the tune from a popular Christian gospel song sung by the Carter Family at the time.  To which he wrote lyrics about how awful capitalist America was and then ended with the refrain “God blessed America for me.” They were lyrics of how common people were routinely exploited and the system was rotten.  Not exactly a good song for the patriotic nation in WW II.  Finally in 1944 he published it and no one noticed.  After protesting the draft, then serving a short stint in the merchant marine, he returned from the war and found his dust bowl fame had disappeared.  His career started going downhill. 

Then in 1951 he got a chance to do a gig on a children’s television program.  Television was a fledgling industry.  And Guthrie wanted to sing God Blessed America for Me.  The producer of the show listened and gagged.  How could he sing lyrics like this for children?

 As I went walking, I saw a sign there,

And on the sign there, It said "Private Property."

But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!

That side was made for you and me.

(You can see how ole’ Woody loved property rights.)

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

The show director demanded Guthrie change the refrain.  Change it or don’t do the gig.  Woody needed money so he changed it.  In keeping to those verses above he changed it  to “This land is made for you and me” as a postive expression. But the director still choked over the lyrics  continued to press Woody to change verses until, with the above two verses deleted, it sounded like an inane song of love of country.

This land is your land

This land is my land

From California to New York Island

From the Redwood Forests, to the Gulf Stream waters

This Land was made for you and me.

            Guthrie recorded it that way but hated it. It caught on, made him famous, but he hated performing it. For he was a writer of protest songs.  Today it stands as his singular work, a song with lyrics he was forced to write and tune set to a gospel song he plagiarized and detested. 

            I keep thinking irreverently, “maybe that’s what drove him crazy.”