AUGUST 31, 2025
The Return of Woody Guthrie
ED RAMPELL
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and GRAMMY
Lifetime Achievement Award winner Woody Guthrie, the
creator of the beloved people’s anthem “This Land is Your
Land,” who was dramatized in two movies Oscar-nominated
for Best Picture – 1976’s B ou n d f or G l or y and 2024’s A C om p l e t e
U n k n ow n – is back with a new album almost 60 years after his
death. W oody A t H om e – V ol 1 + 2 is a new stash of 22
previously unreleased home recordings by the lefty
folksinger, 13 of which are songs not heard anywhere until
now, out almost 75 years after they were captured on tape.
When he was 38, Woody recorded these songs himself into
one microphone on a reel-to-reel, two-channel tape recorder
provided by his music publisher, TRO Essex founder Howie
Richmond. In press notes the singer/songwriter’s
granddaughter Anna Canoni, President of Woody Guthrie
Publications, says: “What I love about this project is that my
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grandfather is closer than he has ever been; it’s like I’m
sitting in the same room with him, listening to him work
through a song. Woody is rough and raw. It’s like we pulled
back the curtain and get to hear his process. Songs about
love, loss, racism, injustice, fascism, and greed. It’s all in
there, just sit back and listen. As my grandfather once wrote,
‘I’ll use a song and my guitar to tell the things that are right
and the things that are wrong.
’”
Press material adds that in these single mic reel-to-reel
songs: “Woody sings about historic events, stories of the
disenfranchised and ignored, love, and of course, the fight
against fascism…
‘Woody at Home’ also reveals new facets of
Woody’s writing, such as his use of first person in his version
of ‘Deportee,
’ as opposed to the third person of the cover
versions. He puts himself in other people’s shoes… The
collection also includes previously unheard home recordings
of ‘Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done,
’ ‘Pastures of
Plenty,
’ and ‘Jesus Christ.
’” On the CD (which is also available
on vinyl), there are also new verses for Woody’s most beloved
song,
“This Land Is Your Land”; the 22 selections were culled
from 32 tapes and 300-plus recordings.
The informal recordings
took place not at a studio
but at the Guthrie family’s
two-bedroom apartment in
Brooklyn, in the early
months of 1951 and 1952.
These tapes have an
unvarnished, spontaneous
character and include three
spoken word tracks
(wherein Guthrie discusses his creative process, among other
things), plus background sounds of Woody’s children
(including what’s probably Arlo’s first recording, decades
before “Alice’s Restaurant”!). The analog tapes were restored
via a high-tech process that used de-mixing software and
vintage tape machines, which enables listeners to cleanly and
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clearly hear the folksinger’s twangy vocals, usually
accompanied by his acoustic guitar.
The collection of songs reveals the thematic preoccupations
of the Oklahoma-born balladeer, who emerged out of the
Dust Bowl during the Great Depression to become the folksy
voice of the downtrodden, the underdog. Woody was one of
those “Okies” depicted by John Steinbeck in T h e G r a p e s of
W r a t h , who fled to California in search of a better life.
Guthrie went on to compose a song about Steinbeck’s hero
entitled “Tom Joad” and gave voice to the concerns of
ordinary people. According to the official Woody website: “By
the time he arrived in California in 1937, Woody had
experienced intense scorn, hatred, and even physical
antagonism from resident Californians, who opposed the
massive migration of the so-called ‘Okie’ outsiders.
“In Los Angeles Woody landed a job on KFVD radio, singing
‘old-time’ traditional songs as well as some original songs…
The local radio airwaves also provided Woody a forum from
which he developed his talent for controversial social
commentary and criticism. On topics ranging from corrupt
politicians, lawyers, and businessmen to praising the
compassionate and humanist principles of Jesus Christ, the
outlaw hero Pretty Boy Floyd, and the union organizers that
were fighting for the rights of migrant workers in California’s
agricultural communities, Woody proved himself a hard-
hitting advocate for truth, fairness, and justice.
”
The leftwing causes that seemed closest to Guthrie’s heart
were unionization and anti-fascism. Epitomizing the
activist/artist, Woody inscribed the words “This machine kills
fascists” on his guitar, and putting his money where his
mouth was, joined the Merchant Marine to fight the Nazis
during World War II. According to Woody: “I was in the
Merchant [Marine]. Three invasions, torpedoed twice, but
carried my guitar every drop of the way. I washed dishes and
fed fifty gunboys, washed their dirty dishes, scrubbed their
greasy messroom, and never graduated up nor down in my
whole eleven months.
”
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According to W i k i p e d i a , one of those torpedo incidents
occurred during the epic battle of D-Day: “His last ship, S e a
P or p oi s e , took troops from the United States to England and
France for the D-Day invasion. Guthrie was aboard when the
ship was torpedoed off Utah Beach by the German submarine
U-390 on July 5, 1944, injuring 12 of the crew.” In the waning
days of WWII Woody was drafted into the US Army for a brief
stint.
On “Woody At Home” Guthrie’s fervent anti-fascism reports
for duty in the song “I’m a Child Ta Fight”: “Hey all you
fascists, here I come! …Hitler blasted Europe down From
Russia down to Spain; I’m gonna take my choppin’ axe An’
bust that Hitler chain! …Grab me a ’zooky and a war tank, yes
And stop that Hitler heel.
”
Performed a cappella, “You Better Git Ready,” is another
clarion call “About this war we’ve got to fight” because “The
devil opened his big black book… He read off Adolph Hitler’s
name, And said – Oh Hell just ain’t the same, Compared to
them Nazis, Hell’s too tame…
”
The rough-hewn Guthrie’s gift was to make progressive ideas
easily accessible to everyday people, and his social
conscience is on full display throughout much of “Woody At
Home.” The people’s poet expressed socialism in simple
terms anyone could grasp in his most famous song: “This
land is your land And this land is my land From the Red Wood
Forest To the New York Island… This land is made for you and
me.” (Although Indigenous people of what is now called
America may disagree as to who this land actually belongs
to…)
In “Pastures of Plenty” Woody sings about the “the Dust
Bowl” and the plight of “us migrants,” who “worked in your
orchards.” “Einstein Theme Song” condemns “race hate, and
race finghtin’s, and race bombings, all this Jim Crow stuff…
”
The heartfelt song “Deportee” is a plaintive lament inspired
by an actual 1948 plane crash that claimed the lives of
nameless Mexican migrant farm workers being forcibly
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kicked out of the USA: “You’re flying me back to your ol’
Mexican border… Some days I’m not legal Some days I’m not
wanted My contract is gone, so I have to move out; More than
six hundred miles You chase me towards that border Worse
than maddogs or thieves or outlaws…” Given the current
purges and scourges on the land being carried out by the ICE-
tapo,
“Deportee” is arguably more relevant today than when
Woody originally composed this protest song in the late
1940s.
“Buoy Bells From Trenton” denounces the 1927 execution of
the famed Italian anarchists in the USA: “Old Judge Thayer…
let Sacco and Vanzetti die; He called ’em wops and radical rats
That same old racial hate Rule my judge and jury’s heart, and
your death line they signed.” In a similar vein,
“Innocent
Man” is about a wrongfully convicted victim of injustice who
“Done went to Alcatraz” and is “On a chain gang lifetime
bound” because “I didn’t have no inside pull.
”
“Backdoor Bum and the Big Landlord” expresses empathy for
homeless hobos. “Jesus Christ” has a Liberation Theology
type of take on “a man, a carpenter by hand” who “said to the
rich,
‘Share your goods with all the poor’ So they laid Jesus
Christ in his grave… these bankers and these preachers, they
nailed him on the cross…
”
“Woody At Home” includes songs with a historical bent, such
as “Great Ship,” which is about the sinking of the Lusitania,
the famed British ocean liner that was sunk by a German U-
boat in 1915 during World War I. In “The Biggest Thing That
Man Who Has Ever Done” Woody ruminates on the Tower of
Babel, Egypt’s pyramids, the American Revolution, slavery
and much more. Several songs reveal Woody’s romantic side:
“One Little Thing an Atom Can’t Do,
” “Forsaken Lover,” “My Id
& My Ego,” and “Funny Mountain.
”
While “Woody At Home” is full of the fighting spirit against
fascism, the songs “I’ve Got to Know” and “Peace Call” also
express antiwar sentiments. It’s no wonder that Woody’s son,
Arlo Guthrie, went on to compose and perform one of the
best songs against the draft and the Vietnam War, 1967’s
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“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” which was adapted for the big
screen by Arthur Penn in 1969, with Arlo playing himself (as
did Woody’s friend, Pete Seeger), and Joseph Boley portraying
a bedridden, hospitalized Woody (who died of Huntington’s
Chorea, a degenerative nerve disease, in 1967) in A l i c e’ s
R e s t a u r a n t. (Fun Fact: The Old Trinity Church at Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, where the real-life restaurateur
Alice Brock lived and A l i c e’ s R e s t a u r a n t was filmed, is now
home to The Guthrie Center.
Other films attest to Woody’s lasting legacy and widespread
influence. 1976’s B ou n d f or G l or y was nominated for four
Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, and scored the
cinematography Oscar for Haskell Wexler, while Leonard
Rosenman won in the Best Music, Original Song Score and Its
Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score category. Director Hal
Ashby was nommed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film
Festival. Interestingly, Woody was depicted by David
Carradine, who may be best remembered for the 1970s TV
series Ku n g F u , although his father, John Carradine,
poignantly portrayed the doomed prophetic union organizer,
Preacher Casy, in the 1940 classic adaptation of Steinbeck’s
T h e G r a p e s of W r a t h , for which John Ford won the Best
Directing Oscar and Jane Darwell received the Best
Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Ma Joad. The
masterpiece received five other Academy Award noms,
including for Best Picture and Henry Fonda for Best Actor for
portraying Tom Joad. (Fun Fact: One of Woody’s sons was
named after Steinbeck’s character, Joady Guthrie.)
In Todd Haynes’ 2007 I’ m N ot T h e r e actors portray different
facets of Bob Dylan’s personality. One is a freight train
hopping black youth who calls himself “Woody Guthrie,
”
played by Marcus Carl Franklin. More recently, in the 2024
Bob Dylan biopic A C om p l e t e U n k n ow n , after hitchhiking from
Minnesota to Manhattan, Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) visits
Woody (movingly depicted by Scoot McNairy) at a health
facility to pay homage to his hero. A C om p l e t e U n k n ow n
received eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture,
Chalamet for Best Actor, Ed Norton (as Pete Seeger) for Best
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Supporting Actor, while James Mangold was nommed for Best
Director and in a writing category.
In addition to these films, Woody’s onetime cabin located on
the land of his actor friend at the Will Geer Theatricum
Botanicum in Topanga Canyon, L.A. County, was transformed
into a museum in 2024. At its annual gala, WGTB, an
amphitheater, posthumously awarded Guthrie the Will Geer
Humanitarian Award, bestowed yearly upon “an individual
who epitomizes and advances human welfare and social
justice championed by Will… to recognize individuals who
share Will’s spirit in the mission to make the world a better
place.” Woody’s grandson, Damon Guthrie (Joady’s son),
accepted the award and performed, as did Keith Carradine,
whose brother David portrayed Woody in B ou n d f or G l or y .
However, some on the Left are critical of aspects of Guthrie’s
politics, which arguably followed the Communist Party USA’s
pro-Moscow party line too rigidly. Woody’s 1940 song “No
More War” expressed sympathy for the Nazi-Soviet Non-
Aggression Pact and USSR’s invasion of Poland, and cost the
folksinger his radio show at KFVD.
In his 1941 song “Roll on, Columbia,” Woody wrote/sang these
unfortunate, racist lyrics:
“Remember the trial when the battle was won,
The wild Indian warriors to the tall timber run,
We hung every Indian with smoke in his gun;
Roll on, Columbia, Roll on!”
Neither of these songs are included in W oody A t H om e , and
having said this TRO Essex founder Howie Richmond,
Guthrie’s music publisher, states the more commonly
accepted view that: TRO Essex founder Howie Richmond,
Guthrie’s music publisher, said: “Woody was writing songs
about the struggles of ordinary people faced with hard luck
and tough times. He touched every subject fearlessly and
honestly and gave hope to those in greatest need… Woody
was a hero to me before I ever met him and before I was a
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publisher… My goal was to hear everything he wanted to play.
It was love and joy for me, from my heart.
”
John Steinbeck had this to say about the people’s
balladeer: “Woody is just Woody. Thousands know him by no
other name. He is a voice with a guitar. He sings the songs of
a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh
voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty
rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing
sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more
important for those who will listen. There is the will of a
people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call
this the American spirit.
”
That spirit is vividly imparted in W oody A t H om e – V ol 1 + 2 .
E d R am p el l w a s n a m e d a ft e r l e g e n d a r y C B S b r oa d c a s t e r E d w a r d
R . M u r r ow b e c a u s e of h i s T V e x p os e s of S e na t o r J o e M c C a r t h y .
R a m p e l l m a j or e d i n C i n e m a a t M a n h a t t a n’ s H u n t e r C o l l e g e a n d
i s a n L .A .
-b a s e d fi l m h i s t or i a n / c r i t i c w h o c o-o r g a ni z e d t h e 2 0 1 7
7 0 t h a n n i v e r s a r y B l a c k l i s t r e m e m b r a n c e a t t h e W r i t e r s G u i l d
t h e a t e r i n B e v e r l y H i l l s a n d w a s a m od e r a t o r a t 2 0 1 9’ s “ B l a c k l i s t
E x i l e s i n M e x i c o” fi l m f e s t a n d c on f e r e nc e a t t h e S a n F r a nc i s c o A r t
I n s t i t u t e . R a m p e l l c o- p r e s e n t e d “ T h e H o l l y w o o d T e n a t 7 5” fi l m
s e r i e s a t t h e A c a d e m y M u s e u m of M ot i o n P i c t u r e s a n d i s t h e
a u t h or of Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the
United States a n d c o-a u t h or of The Hawaii Movie and Television
B
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