Free Republic

I was not going to write about Oliver Anthony’s brilliant song, Rich Men North of Richmond, because I have nothing worthy to add. The video puts all other commentary to shame. North of Richmond refers to the federal government, which is too large, too powerful and too uncaring. But Mark Antonio Wright, executive editor of the Never Trump National Review, butted in with a Learn-to-Code column attacking Anthony for daring to complain about DC’s treatment of the working class. It lectured Anthony to be more like Woody Guthrie, the Nazi apologist and communist. Anthony’s song says: I’ve been sellin’ my...

The group will perform in Tulsa to celebrate the award, given annually to “an artist who best exemplifies Guthrie’s spirit and work” By Pussy Riot will receive the Woody Guthrie Prize in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 6, and perform at the city’s Cain’s Ballroom that evening. The prize is given annually to an artist who “best exemplifies Guthrie’s spirit and work by speaking for the less fortunate through music, film, literature, dance, or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change.” The ceremony is part of the Woody Guthrie Center’s 10th anniversary celebration, which takes place...

A semi-professional soccer team in Oklahoma will no longer play the national anthem before matches. Instead – the Tulsa Athletic will play Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” The Athletics are part of the National Premier Soccer League. The team says they dropped The Star Spangled Banner to create a more inclusive environment.“From our beginning, we have developed a culture of inclusion and acceptance at Tulsa Athletic,” team owner Sonny Dalesandro said in the press release. “We live in a country that allows us to freely speak our voice. We utilize this right as a club to continually try...

Few songs are more ingrained in the American psyche than "This Land Is Your Land," the greatest and best-known work by folk icon Woody Guthrie. For decades, it's been a staple of kindergarten classrooms "from California to the New York island," as the lyrics go. It's the musical equivalent of apple pie, though the flavor varies wildly depending on who's doing the singing. On its most basic level, "This Land Is Your Land" is a song about inclusion and equality—the American ideal broken down into simple, eloquent language and set to a melody you memorize on first listen. The underlying...

Donald Trump is plenty loathed these days for lining his campaign trail with what many find to be racist proclamations, but Woody Guthrie was way early on the tip with a hatred for Trump's father spanning back more than 65 years. In 1950 the famed "This Land Is Your Land" populist folk singer moved into a Brooklyn public housing project owned by Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, and soon found it to be segregated by a color line excluding any black tenants. As Gawker reports, in Guthrie's writings he took to calling the white "Beach Haven" neighborhood "Bitch Havens." How...

I first heard Pete Seeger perform when I was five or six, when I was a red-diaper baby and he was blacklisted and drunk. What I recall most about the encounter was that the tip of his needle-nose glowed bright red. He was performing for a children’s group of some sort at a time when his Communist background kept him out of public venues. His records — not just the Weavers albums, but the early Asch 78′s of the Almanac Singers — were daily fare in my home, along with Woody Guthrie’s children’s songs. My parents knew Guthrie casually; my...

History is the practice of crafting stories around events so that they seem purposeful. Historians are professionals who defend their stories against other stories they do not like. Case in point is the destruction of Thomas Jefferson's character. Sure, Jefferson did a few things – Declaration of Independence, founded UVA, the Louisiana Purchase – but he was a slave owner and thought little of black people's potential. A responsible historian would tell Jefferson's story by noting that most wealthy Virginians owned slaves, and most people in general thought little of racial equality; Jefferson was a product of his era. Still,...

Woody Guthrie was an American original who wrote some enduring music and did a lot to publicize the plight of the people of the Dust Bowl. There was just one little inconvenient truth about Guthrie: he ran in Communist circles. Though it's reported that he never officially joined the party, he's quoted as saying that the "the best thing that I did in 1936 was to sign up with the Communist Party." He also wrote 174 columns for the Communist Party's Daily Worker newspaper. But nary a mention was made of Woody's Communist connections on Morning Joe today. Instead, Mika...

AUSTIN, Texas -- During his keynote speech at this year's South by Southwest music conference, Bruce Springsteen referred to folksinger Woody Guthrie as "a ghost in the machine." In the centennial year of his birth, Guthrie has certainly haunted SXSW 2012. Springsteen and many others have sung his songs. "Woody at 100," a panel session featuring his children, Nora and Arlo Guthrie, considered his legacy. Then Friday night, Chicago-area native Tom Morello capped off his showcase in the middle of the street, leading a throng of Occupy Austin demonstrators in a sing-along of "This Land Is Your Land." "I am...

I've been looking and I haven't heard this mentioned yet. During the Obamunist coronation ceremony lefties Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen were singing "This Land is your Land." To my utter shock and amazement, they actually brought out a verse that is hardly ever sung in public. This verse openly calls for the overthrow of private property. Watch from 2:42 on the video, here are the lyrics: 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; That side was made for...

I grew up in a family of 11 children in the days before SUVs. So we took our road trips in two-car caravans led by a steamy station wagon with crank-handle windows and hot vinyl upholstery. That wagon was always packed with obstreperous kids singing obnoxious songs. But one song we were emphatically discouraged from singing has now emerged as a theme song for John Kerry's presidential campaign. My father loved popular music and never ceased being interested in it. In the 1960s, he happily escorted my older sisters to see the Beatles. A decade later, he bought me tickets...