On June 16 in 1903, Henry Ford signed the papers incorporating Ford Motor Company. A month later, the first Ford car was manufactured in Detroit. But it would not be until later when the company really began doing well, following the 1908 introduction of the Model T and the 1913 creation of an assembly line allowing mass production.
The automobile is intertwined with American history as well as with popular culture, as there are numerous songs about the highway and cars. Some popular songs are specific about the vehicles, such as Janis Joplin’s desire for a Mercedes Benz, Don McLean’s Chevy at the levy, and Prince’s Little Red Corvette.
Ford Motor Company products appear in songs too. In the video below, Marc Cohn sings about Ford’s Thunderbird car in “Silver Thunderbird.”
The title of the song “Silver Thunderbird” focuses on the car, which began manufacturing in 1955 and ended its run in 2005. But the lyrics of the song address Cohn’s childhood memories of how his father loved his car. “Great big fins and painted steel;/ Man it looked just like the batmobile,/ With my old man behind the wheel.”
“Silver Thunderbird” captures what a car can mean to a family. And I can relate, having grown up with parents who for some reason thought it was important to be loyal to one car company.
“Silver Thunderbird” is from Marc Cohn’s self-titled album from 1991 that also included the hit, “Walking in Memphis.” “Silver Thunderbird” later was covered by Jo Dee Mesina.
The most famous song about a Ford car is also one of the greatest car songs ever. “Mustang Sally” was written by Mack Rice and immortalized by Wilson Pickett in 1966.
The song, which asks Sally to slow her Mustang down, is not quite as wholesome as Cohn’s song about the Thunderbird. But the difference in song themes matches the different reputations of the two cars.
Although nobody can surpass Pickett’s version, there are a number of good covers of “Mustang Sally.” For example, in the excellent rise-and-fall-of-an-Irish-soul-band movie The Commitments (1991), the band’s performance of the song is one of the highlights of the film, which came out the same year as Cohn’s song about the Thunderbird.
The movie scene with The Commitments performing the song is no longer available on YouTube. But here is one of the group’s live performances, featuring lead singer Andrew Strong.
One of the highlights of NBC’s America’s Got Talent show this season so far was this week’s appearance by Andrew De Leon in the Austin, Texas auditions. As De Leon explains below, he has been treated as a bit of an outcast for his Goth looks and had never before sang in front of anyone. When he first opens his mouth to sing, the sound is so unexpected that you do not know whether it is going to be terrible or not. But then you realize that the guy can sing. Check out the video below (after a short commercial).
If you are wondering what he is singing, it is “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh My Beloved Father”) a soprano aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi (1918) by Giacomo Puccini. You may read a short description of the context of the aria on NPR’s website, which also has an audio performance by opera singer Amada Squitieri.
As for De Leon’s performance, it is always a nice surprise when someone does something unexpected. As you can see in the video, judges Howie Mandel, Howard Stern and Sharon Osbourne all voted for De Leon to stay in the competition, so we will be seeing him again.
June 27, 2012 Update: After De Leon stumbled a bit from nerves in Las Vegas, the judges voted to eliminate him from the competition. I think the judges blew it. What do you think?
August 22, 2012 Update: He’s back! Howie Mandel brought De Leon back for the Wild Card show, where the judges brought back contestants for a second chance. De Leon delivered, and America voted for him to continue in the competition.
What did you think of Andrew De Leon’s performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On October 6, 2008 at Eastern Michigan University, as the U.S. faced a deep financial crisis, one of the country’s biggest living rock stars took the stage to sing on behalf of a United States presidential candidate. As Bruce Springsteen began strumming his guitar, the candidate stood in a tent behind the scenes with his family. The candidate, who would be elected the country’s first African-American president a month later, sang to his children and danced to the chorus of “This Land Is Your Land.”
“This Land Is Your Land,” along with “America the Beautiful,” is an unofficial national anthem. But this song that presidents sing — and that sometimes is sung in response to presidents’ actions — began as something different. It was written by a non-conforming down-and-out American troubadour more than seventy-five years earlier.
The Origins of “This Land Is Your Land”
Before “This Land Is Your Land” became a beloved American standard, it was a protest song. According to Joe Klein’s book Woody Guthrie: A Life, the 27-year-old Woody Guthrie began writing the song in 1940 out of anger and frustration.
At the time, Guthrie was living alone in a run-down hotel called Hanover House near Times Square in New York. He had moved there after wearing out his welcome as a house guest with singer-actor Will Geer and his wife Herta.
Having seen the struggles of common people across America, Guthrie turned his frustration on Irving Berlin’s portrayal of a perfect America in “God Bless America.” Radio disc jockeys repeatedly played Berlin’s song on the radio in the 1930s. In response, Guthrie began writing a song with the sarcastic title “God Blessed America”:
This land is your land, this land is my land, From California to Staten Island, From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, God Blessed America for Me.
Guthrie wrote five more verses ending with the refrain “God Blessed America for me.” And one verse reported on the men and women standing in lines for food.
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple, By the relief office I saw my people — As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.
Guthrie continued to work on the song. He soon changed “Staten Island” in the refrain to “New York Island.” And he put the lyrics to the tune of the Carter Family’s “Little Darlin’, Pal of Mine.”
The Carter Family, though, did not originally write the music. They took the tune of “Little Darlin’, Pal of Mine” from the Baptist hymn, “Oh My Lovin’ Brother.”
After Guthrie finished “God Blessed America for Me” on February 23, 1940, he put the song away. The song then sat untouched for several years.
Then, in April 1944, Guthrie began recording a large number of songs for record executive Moe Asch. During the last recording session that month, Guthrie pulled out the old protest song. By now, it had a new tag line and a new title, “This Land Is Your Land.”
The recorded version of “This Land Is Your Land” did not include the verse about the relief office. One may speculate about the reasons, but Guthrie may have made the changes for a nation at war. Or perhaps he no longer saw a need to respond to “God Bless America.”
The artist and the producers did not treat “This Land Is Your Land” any differently than the other songs recorded at the sessions. Asch did not have the money to release any of the songs. So, once again the song sat in limbo. Asch, however, later claimed he recognized something important in the song. (p. 285.)
By December of that year, Guthrie had started using “This Land” as the theme song for his weekly radio show on WNEW. And the Weavers recorded the song too.
Most early recordings by Guthrie and other artists omitted one of the more controversial verses. The verse criticized capitalism and private property. It evoked a time when Guthrie and other Okies were turned away at the California border:
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; This land was made for you and me.
I like the way this version starts with Woody, and then it transitions into his son Arlo Guthrie and other singers. The song stays understated before becoming a joyous hoedown with John Mellencamp.
Bruce Springsteen has performed “This Land Is Your Land” for decades. He included it on his Live 1975-1985 box set. And he also performed it with Guthrie’s friend Pete Seeger at a special concert in Washington to celebrate Pres. Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
More recently, on February 5, 2017, Lada Gaga included “This Land Is Your Land” in her Super Bowl halftime performance. As the country seemed divided in recent weeks following the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, Lady Gaga began with “God Bless America” and then went into “This Land Is Your Land.” Knowing that Guthrie wrote his song in response to “God Bless America” gives one a deeper understanding of Lady Gaga’s message that this land is for you and me.
Yet, I suspect many people who came of age around the 1960s first heard “This Land Is Your Land” sung by Peter, Paul & Mary. The trio, like many other artists, recognized that the song works best when everyone sings along.
The Legacy of “This Land Is Your Land”
“This Land is Your Land” took on a life of its own. And it no longer belongs to one person. For example, it can be used for discussion and criticized for its failure to connect the land to the Native Americans (although other artists have altered the song to do so). As noted in previous posts on Woody Guthrie, his work and his songs remain relevant today. Like Guthrie’s other songs, his most famous and timeless song, “This Land Is Your Land,” remains relevant too.
If Woody Guthrie had done nothing else besides write “This Land Is Your Land,” we would still honor him. “This Land Is Your Land” is the first song you think of when you think of the singer-songwriter. It is the song that ends every Guthrie tribute show. “This Land Is Your Land” is the song that David Carradine sings on top of a box car in the final scene of the Guthrie bio-pic Bound for Glory (1976). Also, it is the first song listed in Guthrie’s Wikipedia entry.
Additionally, “This Land Is Your Land” is the first Guthrie song you learned in school. And it is the song that Presidents dance to.
It all started with a relatively unknown drifter in the 1940s venting his anger and frustration in his lonely fleabag room. In that room, thinking about what he had seen traveling from California to the New York Island, Woody Guthrie wrote one of the country’s most beautiful songs.
{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie on July 14, 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie and the Woody Guthrie Centennial too. }
What is your favorite version of “This Land is Your Land”? Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo via public domain.
In 1889, a Pennsylvania dam collapsed causing what would be known as the Johnstown Flood, a disaster referenced in a fake song in a real Bruce Springsteen song.
On May 31 in 1889, a western Pennsylvania dam collapsed, flooding the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania and killing more than 2,200 people. Many today know about the flood through a Bruce Springsteen song that references another “song” about the Johnstown flood. But in the late 1800s, people knew about the devastation of the flood and the socio-economic forces behind it.
The Story of The Johnstown Flood
The South Fork Dam was built on the Little Conemaugh River fourteen miles upstream from Johnstown. In the late 1800s, it constituted the largest earth dam in the United States.
Wealthy men from the Pittsburgh area created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club and owned the dam that created Lake Conemaugh. Rich people from the area enjoyed the fishing lake stocked with black bass. For example, Andrew Carnegie was one of the members of the club.
A steady heavy rain on May 30, 1889, however, weakened the dam. The next morning, the president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club noticed that the dam was under great pressure from the water. A number of men rushed to work to try to save the dam.
As the water pushed against the dam, an engineer tried to warn the residents of nearby Johnstown, a town of 30,000 people about fourteen miles away. But the message did not get to the town in time.
At 3:10 p.m. on May 31, the dam collapsed and around 20 million tons of water rushed at 40 mph toward the town. As the water headed toward the town, it picked up debris along the way.
The water crushed buildings, and whirlpools took down some of the taller structures. A bridge captured much of the debris. Then the debris in the bridge caught fire, causing more casualties (see image above). All together, 2,209 people died.
After the devastation, relief efforts, including one of the first by the Red Cross, came to the town’s aid. The rebuilding of the town took five years. Below is a documentary about the flood that was created by Charles Guggenheim and introduced by David McCullough.
Several years ago, I visited the Johnstown Flood National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood Museum, and they are worth a visit if you are in the area. I first heard of the Johnstown Flood and became interested in visiting the area because it is mentioned in Bruce Springsteen’s “Highway Patrolman” from the Nebraska (1982) album.
Springsteen and “Night of the Johnstown Flood”
The Highway Patrolman of Springsteen’s song, Joe Roberts, tells how he struggles with his loyalties when his brother Franky breaks the law. In the song, Roberts remembers a carefree time dancing with his future wife Maria to a song about the Johnstown Flood.
Yea we’re laughin’ and drinkin’, nothin’ feels better than blood on blood; Takin’ turns dancin’ with Maria as the band played “Night of the Johnstown Flood;” I catch him when he’s strayin’, teach him how to walk that line; Man turns his back on his family he ain’t no friend of mine.
Although in “Highway Patrolman” Springsteen mentions a song called “Night of the Johnstown Flood,” from what I can tell, there was no song with that title. But eventually, after Springsteen’s song, some bands have performed a song with that name.
Artists who have subsequently recorded songs named “Night of the Johnstown Flood” include The Rock Creek Jug Band (from their CD Simpler Times (2010)), Rustwater, Chicken Little (below and free download on the band’s site), and Pygmylush. The epic nature of the flood deserves its own song, but it is interesting how Springsteen’s fictional song title inspired other writers.
Legacy of the Johnstown Flood
Some blamed the Johnstown Flood on the wealthy men who used Lake Conemaugh for their recreation. Their lake created a hazard that killed thousands of working people.
The aftermath of the flood led to some early expressions of outrage during the U.S. Industrial Age against corporate powers and the wealthy. We see some of the same concerns being raised today.
Other things stay the same too. Although the 1889 flood is one of the most famous floods in U.S. history, the town of Johnstown again faced deadly floods in 1936 and 1977.
Painting of “The Great Conemaugh Valley Disaster” via public domain. Leave your two cents in the comments.
Musician Doc Watson passed away on May 29, 2012 at the age of 89 following complications from abdominal surgery. Watson, who went blind at the age of one, influenced many musicians with his flatpicking style of playing the guitar.
In this clip from a documentary about Earl Scruggs, Watson and Scruggs play the song “John Hardy” at Watson’s home. “John Hardy” is about a real person who killed a fellow worker at a coal camp and then was hanged in January 1894.
Before Hardy’s hanging, he was remorseful and allegedly composed the ballad in his jail cell and sang it on the scaffold. Woody Guthrie used the music from “John Henry” for one of his own classic songs.
Earl Scruggs passed away earlier in 2012 in March. Unfortunately we will not hear the likes of Watson and Scruggs playing together again. At least in this world. What is your favorite Doc Watson performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On June 16 in 1903, Henry Ford signed the papers incorporating Ford Motor Company. A month later, the first Ford car was manufactured in Detroit. But it would not be until later when the company really began doing well, following the 1908 introduction of the Model T and the 1913 creation of an assembly line allowing mass production.
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