Day 192: This Machine Kills Facists

On July 14, Woody Guthrie would have been 100 years old if still alive. If alive, you can be damn sure he’d still be kicking ass and taking names. You can be guaranteed he’d be fighting for the poor and disenfranchised. You can be guaranteed he be appalled and disheartened, as well.

I love my country, and I believe Woody firmly did, as well. But it’s hard to dispute there’s much that could not be made better, and it’s hard to dispute that there’s a great many people who could use lifted up. That’s what Woody Guthrie spent his life attempting to do: lift up those who needed it. God knows, he went about in his own unique, slap-to-the-face manner, but God knows, he inspired a hell of a lot of people along the way to do the same for others who needed the helping hand.  

My first exposure to Woody Guthrie was the same as most people’s—singing “This Land Is Your Land” in grade school. That just so happens to be one of the first songs I learned on guitar, primarily because it’s easy to play, but also because it’s a beautiful protest song full of controlled rage and anger. Better, it’s a song written for and to be sung by every American. Not just the rich. Not just the land owners. Not just the privileged. EVERY AMERICAN. Read the lyrics. Recognize the “fog.” It still exists, and it still needs lifting.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling

A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,

This land was made for you and me.

My real education into Woody came through Bob Dylan. You can’t admire and be a follower of Dylan without admiring and being a follower of Woody. Dylan’s story of meeting Woody is a famous and well-known one, but for those who don’t know it, Dylan bummed rides from Minnesota to New York City while still just a kid with the primary objective of meeting his hero, Guthrie. When he got there, he learned Woody was holed up in a hospital getting ready to die, so he made his way there instead. They met, Dylan sang for him, and the rest is history.

I admire Woody’s travels.

I admire “Bound For Glory.”

I admire Woody’s friendships.

I admire the way he played guitar.

I admire the influence he had on Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

I admire that Billy Bragg has spent years carrying on Woody’s efforts.

My favorite Woody Guthrie song is “Do Re Mi”  

For years, a poster hung in the apartments I lived in and then the house I shared with my wife and kids that bore the words listed below. I’ve always wondered how many of my kids’s friends, or even if my kids read the words and if they got any meaning from them over the years. I look at my kids and the way they carry themselves and how they treat and regard people less fortunate than themselves and I believe they did.

"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.”

Woody Guthrie