Words from Woody

“Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma in 1912.  He wrote every word and every song you’ll hear tonight, or ... just about ... as close as makes no difference.  He died in New York City in 1967.  He was a folksinger.”
– from Woody Guthrie's American Song

Early ’30s, oil fields dying out, the boom chasers trickled down the road in long strings of high-loaded cars.  The dust crawled down from the north and the banks pushed the farmers off their land.  The wheat growed, the oil flowed, the dust blowed and the farmer owed.

The people were hunting for some kind of an answer, and the banker didn’t give it to us.  The sheriff never told anybody the answer.  The chamber of commerce was trying to make more money, and they was too busy to tell people the answer to our troubles.  So we asked the preacher, and still didn't learn much where to go or what to do.

All these things was starting to stack up in my head and I just felt like I was going out of my wits if I didn’t find some way of saying what I was thinking.

As long as we’ve got wrecks, disasters, floods, trade union troubles, high prices and low pay and ... politicians, folk songs are on their way in.  You know, I could sing all day and night, sixty days and nights, still ain’t got enough wind to be a politician.
– Woody Guthrie

This land is your land,
This land is my land,
From California
To the New York Island
From the redwood forest
To the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
– Woody Guthrie

I sing river songs, I sing union songs, I sing religious songs – I’ll sing any song that was made up by the people that tells a little part of our big history.

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 down for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it’s run you down and rolled over you, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing songs that make you take pride in yourself and your work.

And the songs I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.

The ballad singer is a mystery to everybody except maybe his own self.  He sings around at strikes, on picket lines, or workers’ meets, picnics, rallies and at big banquets, and the very next time you see him he is out walking along with his old penny pencil and his sweaty nickel tablet again.
- Woody Guthrie