Woody Guthrie born July 14, 1912

[Jack Rabbit]

Ladies and gentlemen, please join in singing our national anthem:

(G)This land is (C)your land, this land is (G)my land
From Cali(D7)fornia to the New York (G)Island,
From the Redwood (C)Forest, to the Gulf stream (G)waters,
This (D7)land was made for you and (G)me.

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway,
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts,
And all around me , a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn't say nothing --
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun come shining, then I was strolling
In wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling;
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting:
This land was made for you and me.

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people --
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
This land was made for you and me.

Photo from the website of University of Virgina

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. and here's a few more

Leonard (my hubby) born July 14th, 1970

My daddy born July 14th 1944

and two of my nieces

Amber July 14th 1988

Emily July 14th 1999

[Zomby Woof]

2. wow

My best friend was born July 14, 1970. Cool!

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. His name isn't Leonard is it?

I'd be scared then...;)

Not really, because you are terrific and you're a Gemini. Isn't your birthday close to mine? I'm June 6th. Aren't you the 9th or something?

:hi:

[Zomby Woof]

6. the 10th!

No, his name is not Leonard, lol.

My Mom's is the 8th!

[welshTerrier2]

4. some great lyrics from Pretty Boy Floyd

I like to think Woody would have made a great DU'er ...

here are the last two verses about an outlaw named Pretty Boy Floyd ... it takes a pretty good shot at bankers:

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Those words could have been written about Enron

Woody definitely would have sided with Grandma Millie.

[Zomby Woof]

5. A great quote

"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 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 traveling. 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 you've not 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

His last sentence is true beyond redemption.

Here's to the memory of a hard travelin' troubador. :toast:

And folks, read "Bound For Glory", or there WILL be a ZombySpanking!

[Dr Fate]

8. I've been havin some hard travlin boy dont you know...

Man that is a great quote...

I love his harmonies w/ Cisco Houston...

[Bat Boy]

14. Boy, did I need that...

Sometimes I'll knock around this board and a post that I really need to read will jump out at me.

This was one of those.

Thanks, Zomby.

[Zomby Woof]

16. anytime, BB

[Dr Fate]

7. Hell yes...

..thanks- those lyrics are majestic- I wish it was the National Anthem...

[Zomby Woof]

10. Arlo told a good story a few years back

Pete Seeger was given the Kennedy Center honors back during Clinton's tenure, and Arlo Guthrie spoke on stage, telling the story about how it was once suggested that "This Land Is Your Land" should be the national anthem. Woody wasn't sure he wanted the song to be "official" by getting such recognition and status. So he said to Pete, "Well, Pete, I guess you're official". :D


(for you youngsters, Pete Seeger, still traveling and singing at the age of 88 or so, was a friend and fellow-traveler of Woody's)

[Digger]

9. Thanks for posting

Woody is one of my favorites. A true American hero.

[OneBlueSky]

11. a strange little man . . .

but the most prolific "folk song" composer ever . . . though he stole a lot of his melodies, he considered it part of the folk tradition . . . commenting on someone else using some of his stuff, he said "Yeah, he stole from me . . . but I steal from everyone!" . . . "This Land" should be the national anthem, imo . . .

Happy Birthday, Woody! . . . :)

[OnionPatch]

13. And OnionPatch's birthday as well!!

Not that I need another one. But thanks for posting. I thought I only shared my birthday with Gerald Ford or someone equally as uninspiring.
It's also Bastille Day! Here's one to the French :toast:

[Jack Rabbit]

15. Happy birthday

Please visit the Bastille Day thread, too.

[Radical Activist]

17. Anyone else going to the Woody Guthrie folk festival

In Okemah Oklahoma this weekend?

[senseandsensibility]

18. Happy Birthday, Woody!

In case any of you are wondering if people remember Woody nowadays, my husband and I both sing this song with our elementary students in a poor school district. Most students are Spanish speakers, learning English, and singing is a great learning tool. They learned several American folk songs, but this one is their favorite by far! The lyrics are especially appropriate for the immigrant students in our classes.:party:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

19. Happy Birthday, Woody!

Your music is timeless as ever. "The Car Song" is my 6 year-old's favorite...


Here's a website you all might find interesting: http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/mylife1.html

Enjoy!

Viva la liberté!

[ET Awful]

20. Happy Birthday Woody . . . . and as you once said yourself . . .

"Take it easy, but take it."


"We got out to the West Coast broke,
So dad-gum hungry I thought I'd croak,
An' I bummed up a spud or two,
An' my wife fixed up a tater stew --
We poured the kids full of it,
Mighty thin stew, though,
You could read a magazine right through it.
Always have figured
That if it'd been just a little bit thinner,
Some of these here politicians
Coulda seen through it."

[Bridget Burke]

21. Steve Earle--Come back, Woody Guthrie

It's Christmastime in Washington
The Democrats rehearse
Gettin' into gear for four more years
Of things not gettin' worse
The Republicans drink whiskey neat
And thank their lucky stars
They said, 'He cannot seek another term
They'll be no more FDRs'
I sat home in Tennessee
Staring at the screen
With an uneasy feeling in my chest
And I'm wonderin' what it means

Chorus :
So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie to us now

I followed in your footsteps once
Back in my travelin' days
Somewhere I failed to find your trail
Now I'm stumblin' through the haze
But there's killers on the highway now
And a man can't get around
So I sold my soul for wheels that roll
Now I'm stuck here in this town

Chorus

There's foxes in the hen house
Cows out in the corn
The unions have been busted
Their proud red banners torn
To listen to the radio
You'd think that all was well
But you and me and Cisco know
It's going straight to hell

So come back, Emma Goldman
Rise up, old Joe Hill
The barracades are goin' up
They cannot break our will
Come back to us, Malcolm X
And Martin Luther King
We're marching into Selma
As the bells of freedom ring

Chorus

The song is "Christmas Time in Washington", from El Corazón. Lyrics from the Original Unofficial Steve Earle site, http://www.steveearle.net/

Track listing for Steve's next album, due in August:

• The Revolution Starts…
  
• Home To Houston
  
• Rich Man’s War
  
• Warrior
  
• The Gringo’s Tale
  
• Condi, Condi
  
• F The CC
  
• Comin’ Around (featuring Emmylou Harris)
  
• I Thought You Should Know
  
• The Seeker
  
• The Revolution Starts Now

[jus_the_facts]

22. Happy Birthday to Woody and MY DAD...he was born 7-14-40....

:party: :loveya: :party:

[SheBop]

23. 1913 Massacre

Take a trip with me in 1913,
To Calumet, Michigan, in the copper country.

I will take you to a place called Italian Hall,
Where the miners are having their big Christmas ball.

I will take you in a door and up a high stairs,
Singing and dancing is heard everywhere,
I will let you shake hands with the people you see,
And watch the kids dance around the big Christmas tree.

You ask about work and you ask about pay,
They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day,
Working the copper claims, risking their lives,
So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.
There's talking and laughing and songs in the air,
And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere,
Before you know it you're friends with us all,
And you're dancing around and around in the hall.

Well a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights,
To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet,
To hear all this fun you would not realize,
That the copper boss' thug men are milling outside.
The copper boss' thugs stuck their heads in the door,
One of them yelled and he screamed, "there's a fire,"
A lady she hollered, "there's no such a thing.

Keep on with your party, there's no such thing."
A few people rushed and it was only a few,
"It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you,"
A man grabbed his daughter and carried her down,
But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, a hundred or more,
But most everybody remained on the floor,
The gun thugs they laughed at their murderous joke,
While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see,
We carried our children back up to their tree,
The scabs outside still laughed at their spree,
And the children that died there were seventy-three.

The piano played a slow funeral tune,
And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon,
The parents they cried and the miners they moaned,
"See what your greed for money has done."


:party:

Happy Birthday, Woody

:party:

[sniffa]

24. woot! happy b-day woody

and my fav. song by him (one of top fav's anyhow)

Deportee

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotten
The oranges are piled in their creseote dumps,
They're flyin' them back to the Mexican border
To save all their money then wade back again.

My father's own father, he waded that river
Other's before him had done just the same
They died in the hills and they died in the valley
Some went to heaven without any name.


**
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mi amigo; Jesus i Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you, will be: "Deportee" **

Some of us are illegal and others not wanted
Our work contract's out and we have to move on
Six hundred miles to the Mexican border
They chase us like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves.

(** **)

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon
A fireball of thunder that shook all the hills
Who are all of these dear friends, gathered like dry leaves
The radio said they were just 'deportees'

(** **) - Twice

[SheBop]

25. me, too

... All they will call you, will be: "Deportee" ...



:cry:

[sniffa]

26. can you reccomend any covers?

i have a hard time Locating my fav version - johnny cash and wiLLie neLson ("the highwaymen" i think?).

bruce springstein's version is good.

i've heard too many irish foLk bands cover it - not that good.

and truth be toLd, i've never heard woodie sing/chant it.

[SheBop]

27. The first one that

came to mind is the absolutely beautiful one by Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert from the 1980's, I believe.

Also, Arlo Guthrie covered his dad's song as well.

(um, Bruce Springsteen, you say? YES! He is just wonderful; have you listened to "The Ghost of Tom Joad"????)


:pals:

[sniffa]

28. doesn't ring a beLL

but then again, i'm not a big bruce fan.

[Jack Rabbit]

29. Bump

:bounce: