Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/01/woody-guthries-1943-new-year.html
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“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.”
(Clockwise, Michael Frayn.)
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“Bound for Glory” was published in 1943, and Woody shipped out as a merchant marine. His marriage to Marjories was a few years in the future,which means Arlo was still to change me.
But he was out of tge dustbowl, and new famous people like Will Geer and John Steinbeck. He had some level of musical success.
And he was 24 years from death, and 9 years from his Huntignton’s disease diagnosis (which was a good thing since he started declining and nobody knew why), so his life was mostly over, though it was a slow process.
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Pete (#30,“Love Pete”) is surely Pete Seeger. An incredible guy who deserved Woody’s love and no doubt everyone else’s who met him.
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Nope
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Nazis & Fascists hate hope, and that makes me happy.
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Shoot, this reminds me, I need to write my new year and new decade resolutions. With my handwriting being what it is, I’ll just type them. End of reply.
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There’s plenty of good stuff on the radio, if you listen for it.
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Here’s hoping!
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I love the list, and so does BB:
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And it’s a powerful reminder to doodle!
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Guthrie’s “Happy, Joyous Hanukkah” was new to me as of a couple of weeks ago. My daughter was in a concert where one of the groups performed it – they explained that Guthrie’s household celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas (as does the family comprising part of the group).
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Is that one of the “discovered” songs?
Woody wrote a lot, but some some songs were never recorded, or even set to music.
So “Deportee” was just lyrics until Martin Hoffman added music, I think after Woody was too far gone to record it. Yes, “Song for Martin” on Judy Collins’ " True Stories and Other Dreams" is about Martun Hoffman. “I first heard Woidy’s songs from him…”
So there were a lit of songs waiting around, so much for New Years resolutions. It’s generally been Nora Guthrie who made the effort to get those songs recorded. I think the first was tgat Bilky Bragg with Wilco album,but others followed. Without looking, I vaguely recall an album of Jewish songs.
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I think you’re right, that the Klezmatics first set it to music.
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Most music I hear on the radio is mediocre at best. College radio has good stuff occasionally, but I’m not always in the mood for it.
I stopped listening to NPR when it got indistinguishable from Welcome To Nightvale.
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Yeah, I agree with this.
Yes! Also alternative stations! Or, “station” most likely; I’m lucky in that my city, although small, is quirky enough to warrant a wonderful alternative station that has dedicated DJs.
sigh Yeah, I understand this too. You’ll get one or two songs in a row that you like, but that third one is an ear-destroying train wreck.
Whoa whoa whoa, now that I take some umbrage to. NPR works incredibly hard to provide balanced news coverage, interesting programming and fun weekend shows. Comparing it to “Welcome to Night Vale” is like comparing real apples to made-up oranges.
Maybe they shouldn’t.
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I just assumed there was a missing /s
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Somebody has to provide a benchmark for what the news should be, if only to highlight what it currently isn’t.
