Protest singers: Woody Guthrie
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
― Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson ‘Woody’ Guthrie
July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967
Woody Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. His musical legacy includes hundreds of songs. Guthrie is also known for his guitar branded with the slogan ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’.
Many of Guthrie's songs are concerned with the conditions faced by the unemployed and disenfranchised people of Oklahama during the Great Depression. In 1935 a dust storm hit the plains of Oklahama, making life even more desperate and difficult for farmers and the rural poor battling a drought and the impact of a global economic downturn. Thousands of people, Guthrie included, from Oklahoma, as well as Kansas, Tennessee, and Georgia, hit Route 66 and headed west in search of opportunities.
Moneyless and hungry, Woody hitchhiked, rode freight trains, and even walked his way to California, taking whatever small jobs he could. In exchange for bed and board, Woody painted signs and played guitar and sang in saloons along the way, developing a love for traveling the open road. By the time he arrived in California in 1937, Woody had experienced intense scorn, hatred, and even physical antagonism from resident Californians, who opposed the massive migration of the Okie outsiders.
Guthrie became an advocate for truth, fairness, and justice. His songs ‘I Ain't Got No Home, ‘Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad, ‘Talking Dust Bowl Blues, ‘Tom Joad and ‘Hard Travelin’’ all reflect his desire to give voice to those who had been disenfranchised.
Guthrie’s best-known song is ‘This Land Is Your Land’. Tired of the radio overplaying Irving Berlin's ‘God Bless America’, a song that Guthrie believed was unrealistic and complacent, and inspired by his experiences with the Okies, he wrote ‘This Land Is Your Land’ in February 1940.
July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967
Woody Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. His musical legacy includes hundreds of songs. Guthrie is also known for his guitar branded with the slogan ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’.
Many of Guthrie's songs are concerned with the conditions faced by the unemployed and disenfranchised people of Oklahama during the Great Depression. In 1935 a dust storm hit the plains of Oklahama, making life even more desperate and difficult for farmers and the rural poor battling a drought and the impact of a global economic downturn. Thousands of people, Guthrie included, from Oklahoma, as well as Kansas, Tennessee, and Georgia, hit Route 66 and headed west in search of opportunities.
Moneyless and hungry, Woody hitchhiked, rode freight trains, and even walked his way to California, taking whatever small jobs he could. In exchange for bed and board, Woody painted signs and played guitar and sang in saloons along the way, developing a love for traveling the open road. By the time he arrived in California in 1937, Woody had experienced intense scorn, hatred, and even physical antagonism from resident Californians, who opposed the massive migration of the Okie outsiders.
Guthrie became an advocate for truth, fairness, and justice. His songs ‘I Ain't Got No Home, ‘Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad, ‘Talking Dust Bowl Blues, ‘Tom Joad and ‘Hard Travelin’’ all reflect his desire to give voice to those who had been disenfranchised.
Guthrie’s best-known song is ‘This Land Is Your Land’. Tired of the radio overplaying Irving Berlin's ‘God Bless America’, a song that Guthrie believed was unrealistic and complacent, and inspired by his experiences with the Okies, he wrote ‘This Land Is Your Land’ in February 1940.
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