Woodie Guthrie's New Years Resolution List, 1942

Business Insider ^ | Dec. 31, 1941 /Dec. 27, 2013 | Woody Guthrie

[Mrs. Don-o]

If you're having trouble nailing down your New Year's resolutions, here's a good place to start.

Seventy years ago, American folk legend Woody Guthrie scribbled in his journal a list of 33 tasks he would dedicate himself to in the coming year. According to WoodyGuthrie.org, he called them "Rulin's."

At age 31, he was in the prime of his life, with a wife and three kids, as well as a good deal of life experience, having survived the Dust Bowl to make it out to California.

As a result, it's a pretty unbeatable list. Check it out:

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1. Work more and better
2. Work by a schedule
3. Wash teeth if any
4. Shave
5. Take bath
6. Eat good — fruit — vegetables — milk
7. Drink very scant if any
8. Write a song a day
9. Wear clean clothes — look good
10. Shine shoes
11. Change socks
12. Change bed cloths often
13. Read lots good books
14. Listen to radio a lot
15. Learn people better
16. Keep rancho clean
17. Dont get lonesome
18. Stay glad
19. Keep hoping machine running
20. Dream good
21. Bank all extra money 22. Save dough
23. Have company but dont waste time
24. Send Mary and kids money
25. Play and sing good
26. Dance better
27. Help win war — beat fascism
28. Love mama
29. Love papa
30. Love Pete
31. Love everybody
32. Make up your mind
33. Wake up and fight

[Mrs. Don-o]

This particular list, penned by the great Woody Guthrie in 1942 at the tender-but-just-wise-enough age of 30, is an absolute gem of humor, earnestness, and pure humanity.

"Take it easy, but take it."
Woodie Guthrie

[turducken]

The original dirty hippie

[Tax-chick]

I was just thinking of Woodie Guthrie today. The song I couldn’t remember was “This Land is Your Land.” It’s a convoluted story that wanders through “Doctor Who” and my childhood in California in the 70s.

[Tax-chick]

3. Wash teeth if any
4. Shave
5. Take bath
9. Wear clean clothes — look good
10. Shine shoes
11. Change socks

I wish I could get my kids to do all this ... also “Change underwear,” but that’s probably included in #9.

[Bernard Marx]

The song I couldn’t remember was “This Land is Your Land.”

The Communist national anthem, written and performed by an authentic Communist. How easily we were seduced.

[rockrr]

It’s amazing that someone could have so many of the clues and still reach all the wrong conclusions.

[Fiji Hill]

С Новым годом, Comrade Guthrie!

[Tax-chick]

*shrug*

I always thought it was very Manifest Destiny, “This land was made for you and me.”

[ohiobushman]

Guthrie was a philosophical communist. While Guthrie claimed to have joined the American Communist Party, there is no conclusive evidence that he ever did. What he did do was write 174 columns under the title of Woody Sez for the Communist Party newspaper, The Daily Worker. Among these columns, he heaped praise upon Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, even defending Stalin’s unprovoked invasion of Poland in 1939!I have no respect for him.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Mrs. Don-o loves Don-o.

[Fiji Hill]

I prefer the gospel song whose melody Comrade Guthrie ripped off when he wrote "This Land":

The Fire Song--The Carter Family

[Responsibility2nd]

Yet today, Guthrie would be far to the right of many Republicans.

[JaguarXKE]

“Turn Underwear Inside Out When Needed.”

[Fiji Hill]

27. Help win war — beat fascism

It's a pretty safe bet that Comrade Woody's list of New Years resolutions for 1941 contained nothing whatsoever about beating fascism.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hippie? I dunno. Had a wife and 3 kids, didn't do drugs, and a regular job.

Kept clean, too, for a working man.

[Tax-chick]

Unnngh.

[Let_It_Be_So]

I read the lyrics and don’t find reference to communist ideology written therein. What are you talking about? (must have missed it somewhere)

[Tax-chick]

Never heard that, thanks for posting.

I still don’t think there’s anything Communist in the lyrics of “This Land is Your Land.”

[elcid1970]

You nailed it! Until Hitler broke his nonagression pact with Stalin & invaded the USSR in June 1941, Guthrie was a good little commie like all the others who chanted “The Yanks Are Not Coming!” & preached strict isolationism.

After June 22nd, the commies in America began chanting “The Yanks Are Not Coming Too Late!!” and the alliance with “our heroic Soviet ally” was a matter of Party discipline while Comrade Woody inscribed his guitar with “This Machine Kills Fascists!” and hit the road for the war effort.

Since 1967 Woody Guthrie has been First Peoples’ Commissar of Soviet Hell.

[Tax-chick]

Since 1967 Woody Guthrie has been First Peoples’ Commissar of Soviet Hell.

I see what you did there. (In the Kingston Trio version.) My mother was into folk music in the 70s.