For us “Okies” (or, Oklahomans, in case you haven’t read Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath), our musical stars glow brightly: Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, Leon Russell, Hoyt Axton, Reba McIntire, Jimmy Webb, Patti Page – just to mention a few.
But one of my favorites is Woody Guthrie.
Woody was born July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma, and died in 1967. Okemah is a Kickapoo Indian word which means “things up high.”
Labeled the “Dust Bowl Troubadour,” many of Woody’s songs are archived in the Library of Congress, and his impact on folk music is pervasive. Woody was the father of eight children – including folk musician Arlo Guthrie – and grandfather to many, including Sarah Lee Guthrie. Bob Dylan calls Woody his musical mentor. His continuing influence on folk music is showcased annually in a music festival that bears his name, held each year around his birthday in Okemah.
The term “Okies” was at first a derogatory term for people fleeing to California during the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression – and Woody Guthrie was of that era. When you contemplate the plight and poverty of that time, his song “This Land Is Your Land” seems even more amazing. It is his most famous song and continues to be sung regularly in schools across the nation – and, most recently, at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.
The version of the song we typically hear and sang as kids in elementary school would leave the impression of Woody as an optimist and hopeful patriot, which he most certainly was. However, there are lyrics that were removed from the published version that tell us of his activist side.
Here are lyrics we typically sing (feel free to sing along):
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.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
Saying this land was made for you and me.
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.
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.
Here are the verses that didn’t make the cut:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I’d seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?
By the way, the lyrics to this timeless song are all Woody’s, but the tune was from a Baptist hymn called “Oh, My Loving Brother.”
Troubadours wrote in several lyrical genres; it seems to me that Woody did, too. There are a couple that I think fit him perfectly.
One of those 13th century troubadour genres is sirventes. According to Wikipedia, “It was a song addressing current events from the perspective of a sirven (“servant”). It was always partisan, being either highly complimentary or oozing with vitriol.”
The guitar Woody used in most performances had a sticker on the front that read, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”
Another was the viadeyra: “A dance song devised to lighten the burden of a long voyage or to enliven the trip.”
These genres and more are evident in Woody’s music and his influence. He was most certainly a troubadour. And when you’re born in a town whose name means “things up high,” in a state that takes a derogatory name like “Okies” and makes it a badge of honor, in a nation in which he knows he has a place and he will serve in that place because he knows it’s not yet as it ought to be – his work, his art, and his message endure.
There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence.
– Jean de La Bruyère
