After an exciting election yesterday, congratulations to everyone who participated, including everyone who voted, all of the candidates for state offices, Gov. Mitt Romney, and Pres. Barack Obama. As the president begins his second term in office and all the elected officials begin the difficult work of governing, may we hope that all of our representatives learn a thing or two from music. Unfortunately, a song cannot be president, but what if it could? In this performance, the Ohio band Over the Rhine imagines what the world might be like.
We’d vote for a melody, Pass it around on an MP3; All our best foreign policy, Would be built on harmony.
Over the Rhine’s performance of their song “If a Song Could Be President” above is at the WUTK Radio studio where they appeared before a May 28, 2008 show in Knoxville Tennessee. I would vote for any song that imagines a better world while giving roles to John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Patsy Cline.
(Thanks to mh for reminding me of this song.) What is your favorite song about politics? Leave your two cents in the comments.
I have noted elsewhere that it is often difficult for artists to reflect on their own time and create great art about current events. Some musicians, including Bruce Springsteen and his recent album Wrecking Ball, have attempted to comment on the tough times facing many people around the world. On the new CD Little Victories (2012) singer-songwriter Chris Knight, though, may have created the angriest record about The Great Recession. It also may be the best.
The 52-year-old Kentuckian has been making great music for a long time following his initial post-college career as a mine reclamation inspector and as a miner’s consultant. I have loved his music since his self-titled debut in 1998, but surprisingly, major fame has alluded him. Perhaps he is too authentic so Nashville country radio does not play his music, and perhaps because he is too twangy so other listeners write him off. But you should not let your prejudices detour you from discovering his music. Not surprisingly, he is often compared to Steve Earle, another artist who bucked convention and makes intelligent and enthralling music.
John Prine, who joins Knight on the title track of the latest album, is another inspiration. Although I initially was surprised to learn that Knight started out by teaching himself John Prine songs, the connection makes sense when you hear the honest stories of down and out people in the music of both men.
Knight’s music has always featured honest stories about real life, and his latest album, Little Victories reflects much of the anger of the times, whether he is singing about tough times or broken hearts, as he does in this performance of “Missing You” with his band the Drunken Boaters at Fountain Square in Downtown Cincinnati on July 19, 2011.
Little Victories starts off with a hard sound on the first several songs, setting the stage for the anger of the times. Check out the opening song “In the Meantime.”
One of my favorite songs on the album, which is not available on YouTube, is “You Can’t Trust No One.” It is one of those songs that made me stop when it came on as I tried to figure out what it was about and what he was saying. My best guess is that it is some kind of sci-fi post-apocalyptic song, or a warning of where we may be going, or a prediction. Whereas Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own” may give us some comfort in dark times, Knight’s characters recognize that sometimes platitudes fail, as he sings in the chorus to “You Can’t Trust No One.”
“People, won’t you come together, we’ve all got to live as one; I ain’t right sure what that means but I reckon it sounds like fun; Everybody pack your picnic lunch, and everybody pack your gun, ‘Cause you can’t trust no one.”
Later in the album, the music is less angry but the tough times are still there, as on “Nuthin’ on Me.” In “Out of this Hole” Knight contemplates the hole that many people around the world have fallen into.
The songs above give a little sense of the new album, but I am not sure you can get a sense of the darkness of the album from some performances before loud patrons in drinking establishments. In an interview some years ago, Knight explained, that he relates “to people in desperate situations doing what they got to do to get…doing what they do and then living with it. The living with it part is kind of what intrigues me.” If you also are intrigued by how people survive tough times, sit back with some bourbon and listen to Little Victories.
Singer-songwriter Greg Trooper is giving a free download of his Popular Demons (1998) CD with your email request. You can also stream the album. If you download, be a good sport and make a small donation of a few bucks on NoiseTrade to help keep him in business making great music.
The album has been out of print for awhile, so it is worth grabbing up. {March 2013 Update: The Popular Demons download was only available for a limited time but Trooper periodically is making other albums available for free download, so you might see a different album from him displayed. Whatever album is available for download, give it a listen.}
Greg Trooper is a great talent, and I have previously praised his song about Muhammad Ali. Popular Demons has some great songs, so even if you do not go the download route immediately, give a listen by pressing the play button.
Trooper’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine,” with a little help from Steve Earle, ranks with some of the best Dylan covers out there. “Lightening Bug” is a fun song too, and Emmylou Harris duets on “Bluebell.” Check them out, and if you like the music, download and send $5.00 to Mr. Trooper.
What is your favorite Greg Trooper song? 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.
One of my favorite recent CD purchases is This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark (2011), which I have had on repeat play since I got it in December. This One’s for Him is a solid 2-CD collection of songs by the wonderful Texas singer-songwriter Guy Clark. Although tribute albums often are hit-and-miss affairs with an uneven collection of interpretations by various artists, this one maintains a nice consistency throughout. One reason the CDs work so well is the consistency of Guy Clark’s writing, although tribute albums usually consist of well-written songs. Another reason that the listening experience is like listening to a CD by one artist is because the producers recorded live with the band and a limited number of overdubs, giving consistency throughout. Finally, the great collection holds up due to the group of artists assembled for the project. Although there are some famous singers on the collection, the producers clearly opted for talented musicians who love Clark’s music instead of just seeking big names, and the love comes through the music.
It is hard to choose a favorite song, but one of mine is Jack Ingram’s version of “Stuff that Works.” In a video no longer available on YouTube, Jack Ingram talked about his love of Guy Clark’s music, noting that the music feels “like the Truth.” The great thing about Clark’s songs is that he writes beautiful words to go with his beautiful music. Stuff that works, stuff that holds up; The kind of stuff you don’t hang on the wall; Stuff that’s real, stuff you feel; The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.
Artists on the CD include a who’s who of great singers and songwriters: Rodney Crowell, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Earl Keen, Ray Wylie Hubbard, John Prine, and many more. [UPDATE: In a promotional video no longer on YouTube, Hayes Carll, who sings “Worry B Gone” on the tribute CD, talked about hanging out with Clark.]
If you are already a fan of Guy Clark’s music, you will love the CD. But if you are new to his music, the tribute CD is a great place to start. One of my favorite songs of all-time is Guy Clark’s “LA Freeway.” Radney Foster does an excellent job covering the song on the CD. I could not find his version on Youtube, so here is the songwriter’s version. He does a pretty good job too.
If I can just get off of this LA freeway, Without getting killed or caught; I’d be down that road in a cloud of smoke, For some land that I ain’t bought — bought — bought.
“LA Freeway” captures the common longing for running off and being free. Even if you cannot make that kind of escape, you might come a little closer if while you’re on the road you pop in this CD.
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