Tuesday, July 20, 2004
ON WOODY G.
He carried a guitar labeled "This Machine Kills Fascists." The more I learn about Woody Guthrie, the more in awe I am. We all knew his song "This Land Is Your Land", we sang it in school, but did we mean it? Did we understand how radical it was? No, nobody did, or else it would have been banned. It wouldn't hit me until I heard Mojo Nixon's cover of it ("This peice of dirt right here under our feet doesn't belong to just one of us, the guy with the most lawyers doesn't own all of it, it belongs to everybody."). It's no wonder he was labelled a communist during the big "Red Threat" days. No, Woody was no communist, about the only thing you could have labelled him was an American artist. I want my guitar to kill fascists too.
He carried a guitar labeled "This Machine Kills Fascists." The more I learn about Woody Guthrie, the more in awe I am. We all knew his song "This Land Is Your Land", we sang it in school, but did we mean it? Did we understand how radical it was? No, nobody did, or else it would have been banned. It wouldn't hit me until I heard Mojo Nixon's cover of it ("This peice of dirt right here under our feet doesn't belong to just one of us, the guy with the most lawyers doesn't own all of it, it belongs to everybody."). It's no wonder he was labelled a communist during the big "Red Threat" days. No, Woody was no communist, about the only thing you could have labelled him was an American artist. I want my guitar to kill fascists too.
Comments:
get the billy bragg/wilco mermaid avenue discs. both of them. woody's daughter gave them boxes full of songs woody wrote but never recorded and they made two records out of the stuff. brilliant. he is Josh's idol.
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