A little more Woody Guthrie to start your new year
When we shared our New Year’s post including Woody Guthrie’s own famous resolutions/”rulin’s,” I was reminded of the visit that Hightower and I made to the fantastic Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, OK this past spring. Not only is the Center a thoughtful and beautiful collection of Woody’s work, but it’s also a poignant and insightful record of that era that he lived through. (With a bonus original copy of the song lyrics he wrote about Trump’s dad, his landlord when he lived in Brooklyn!)
The mainstream view of history that we’re taught leaves out so many radical perspectives on the realities of the day, and whenever I discover those perspectives and experience them, they give me a visceral sense of belonging to the long, long tradition of pushing for progress no matter what. It reminds me to keep marching, and to keep contributing to the documentation of our radical moments together.
Enjoy these photos and video from our time at the Center, and be sure to visit them if you ever have the chance.
— Deanna
Lyrics to “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”
This is a collection to cherish. Woody is the voice of the common people - a bard for the ages. Thanks, Deanna, and Happy (and COURAGEOUS) New Year to you, Jim, and all the Lowdowners out there. Another bard (Shakespeare) begins his last play, The Tempest, with a disastrous storm at sea. Right in the middle of it, the captain tells his crew to keep on keeping on:"Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!" Never give up!
Close to 90 years later, Woody's pledge of allegiance and inadequate housing depictions are as pointedly relevant as ever. Thanks for focusing on them, and his wife who saved so much of Woody's work.