Yes, This Land Really IS Your Land: Woody Guthrie Dies
Folk singer Woody Guthrie, who wrote many songs about the victims of civil liberties violations, died on this day.
Guthrie wrote songs about immigrant workers who were deported, tenant farmers evicted from their homes, and the victims of police brutality and anti-labor actions, among others. This Land is Your Land, easily his most famous song, is now recognized as an American classic. He died on this day after a long fight with Huntington’s disease.
This Land is Your Land did not receive much recognition when Guthrie wrote it on February 23, 1940 and recorded it for the first time in 1944. It became popularly known beginning in the 1950s, largely through the efforts of folk singer Pete Seeger, who had been blacklisted because of his leftist political views and associations, and built a career in the 1950s singing on college campuses and to small political events.
Guthrie inspired the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and in particular inspired a young folk singer named Bob Dylan.
Still relevant today, from his song, Deportee:
The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
The oranges are filed in their creosote dumps
They’re flying ’em back to the Mexico border
To take all their money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, farewell Roselita
Adios mes amigos, Jesus e Maria
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be deporteesHear Woody Guthrie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE
Learn more at the official Woody Guthrie site: http://www.woodyguthrie.org/
Read: Joe Klein, Wood Guthrie: A Life (1999)
Learn more about the folk music revival: Ronald Cohen, Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940–1970 (2002)