The toads' weekend challenge from Susie

I want the job my friend Susie's daughter has. She works at the The Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The center houses the museum and archives for the American folk singer Woody Guthrie.

Susie introduced Woody to the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads today, and I think he'd be very comfortable in our garden. Even though his father had been a member of the KKK, Woody was a man of the people, all the people. He didn't just talk about equality, and he didn't just sing about it. He lived it. Many of the songs he wrote became part of the folk song genre almost immediately. Although the lyrics changed over time, as folk song lyrics do, at the heart of each of his many songs is the heart of a man who cared.

Many of you may not recognize his name but you'll recognize the name of his son, Arlo Guthrie, who followed in his father's footsteps. I was fortunate, however, to be raised by a musician who admired Woody and taught me about him before Arlo hit the music scene.

“A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it.”

Woody Guthrie

*

I wonder what Woody Guthrie would say

if he could see our countries today,

all of Canada, and the whole USA.

He’d be wondering why conservatives say

poor people don’t matter

the rich should get breaks

cut down all the trees

don’t care about spills

from pipelines and fracking

and other new ills.

He’d see we’ve got solar

and wind power, too,

and he’d wonder why

we aren’t using them more.

Why oil? Why gas?

Why take chances with that?

When better’s available

at the drop of a hat?

He’d probably lead us

in a march of protest

'til the RCMP

had us under arrest.

There are border patrols

south and north of the U.S.

while both armies are fighting

in the middle east,

and from the west

the Pacific so blue

is radioactive

for fish, whales and you.

The planet is warming,

which the right wing denies,

and if we talk about it

the government spies

will arrest us tomorrow

just because we despise

the way things are going,

the things that are wrong,

and we simply can’t fix them

with another folk song.

Kay Davies, November, 2013                                  

Woody Guthrie's guitar wore
a sign that said,
"This machine kills fascists."

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

"I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built.

"I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work."

Guthrie on songwriting