Woody Guthrie A Life Archives

The nameless “deportees” of Woody Guthrie‘s “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)” were recently remembered by name on a monument unveiled in Fresno, California. The song and the memorial commemorate a plane crash on January 28, 1948 after a plane chartered by the U.S. Immigration Services flew out of Oakland and crashed near Coalinga.

Thirty-two people died in the crash, but newspapers originally only reported the four names of the pilot, the first officer, the flight attendant, and an immigration officer. The media merely referred to the 28 others as “deportees.” Many of the 28 Mexicans were part of a government work program who the government was flying home, while some of them had entered the country illegally.

Woody Guthrie knew about the importance of names, as he showed in his earlier song about the 1941 sinking of the Reuben James. After the California plane crash, he read about the nameless deaths and created his own protest by writing a poem about the event, noting the way the media dehumanized the people from south of the border.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees.”

Guthrie biographer Joe Klein called the “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos” lyrics “the last great song [Woody Guthrie] would write” (Woody Guthrie: A Life, p. 362). Guthrie, however, chanted the words of the poem, as it was without music.

“Plane Wreck at Los Gatos” would not be performed publicly as a song for more than a decade, after a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman added the music and Pete Seeger began performing the song. In the video below, Woody’s son Arlo Guthrie performs the song at Farm Aid in 2000.

The song ends with a question, asking “Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?/ To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil/ And be called by no name except ‘deportees’?” The memorial evokes Guthrie’s imagery, as it features a stone etched with names on 32 leaves, commemorating all who died in the plane crash.

The recent news coverage of the memorial has tried to make up for the original reporting on the crash. The Los Angeles Times published an article listing the names of everyone who died in the crash. You may also order a cool print that commemorates the memorial and lists the names.

There are several nice covers of “Deportee,” including one by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan during the Rolling Thunder Revue in the mid-1970s (thanks to Dylan scholar Michael Gray for pointing me to the Baez-Dylan version).

Also, check out this cool video of Lance Canales & The Flood singing “Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)” that also features the memorial. Canales lives in Fresno, and he and his band wanted to highlight the names of those killed. At around the 3:25 mark, you see people holding up signs with the names. So this video of a powerful rendition of the song finally answers Guthrie’s question, “What were their names?”

What is your favorite Woody Guthrie song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Woody Guthrie’s “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You”

This Land Is Your Land: The Angry Protest Song That Became an American Standard

Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” Was About More Than an Outlaw

Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Cover of Bob Dylan’s “Brownsville Girl”

“Satan’s Jeweled Crown” & Bruce Springsteen (Cover of the Day)

Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris Pay Tribute to Joan Baez

(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

Folksinger and songwriter Woody Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912 in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma. In honor of his birthday, Chimesfreedom will consider some of the songs and life events of this man who looms large in both the American songbook and in our concepts of a period of American history.

Guthrie is a part of our past, but also our present and future, as his spirit lives on in many musicians, including the young disciple he met before he died, Bob Dylan. Guthrie’s songs reflect both the American spirit and the American struggles of his time, so it seems appropriate that we celebrate his life this year as the world has been struggling through economic hard times. But he is always relevant, as a large number of people suffer even when times are “good.”

“So Long It’s Been Good to Know You”

We start with one of Guthrie’s earliest songs, “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You.” According to Woody Guthrie: A Life, by Joe Klein, Guthrie wrote the song not long after dust storms hit Guthrie’s home in Pampa, Texas in spring 1935 (“In a month called April, a county called Gray”).

Out of the experience, Guthrie, who recently became a father, wrote the song. Originally, he called the song “Dusty Old Dust” and would sing in the local saloons.

Rob Tepper does this video of “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You” using his best Woody Guthrie imitation showing what a Woody Guthrie video might look like had they had videos back in Guthrie’s days. Tepper is a talented actor who does a one-man show portraying Woody Guthrie, and he appeared in the short film Been Good To Know Yuh – a Woody Guthrie Story. Check out his video of the song.

Inspirations for the Song

Guthrie took the melody for “Dusty Old Dust” from Carson Robison’s “Ballad of Billy the Kid.” But the chorus was Guthrie’s original work. Below is Marty Robbins singing “Ballad of Billy the Kid.”

When Guthrie wrote “So Long It’s Been Good to Know You,” Guthrie was still a young man in his early 20’s yet to do most of his travels. Despite his youth, his song shows a skill in using a happy-sounding song to express subtle anger.

Guthrie remembered local townspeople who raised prices to capitalize on the natural disaster. And he recalled the response of Preacher McKenzie, who “could not read a word of his text,/An’ he folded his specs, an’ he took up collection.”

Recordings

Years after Guthrie left Texas and ended up in New York City, he recorded the song for an album, Dust Bowl Ballads.

Later, Guthrie wrote another version of the song specifically about World War II. This other version included the lyrics, “So it won’t be long till the fascists are gone/ And all of their likes are finished and done.” Here is Guthrie singing the WWII version of the song.

As is the case with many of Guthrie’s songs, “So Long” seems like a tune I have known since birth. So I cannot remember when I first heard it. It just always was there.

Like many people, my introduction to “So Long” probably came through the Weavers, who polished up the song with some harmonies. The group, including Pete Seeger, also performed the song in a B-movie musical, Disc Jockey (1951).

So long, but only for now.

What’s your favorite version of “So Long”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

[Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Rob Tepper is the same Robert Tepper who sang the theme song from Rocky IV. Thanks to Julian Tepper for the correction.]