Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Such was the prolific nature of Woody Guthrie's muse - around 1,400 songs written, of which we know the tunes to a mere 400 - that an exhaustive survey would entail an entire library of discs. But this three-CD set offers as decent a one-stop anthology as any, touching all the bases of the Dust Bowl Bard's oeuvre, from alternative national anthems such as "This Land Is Your Land", "Pastures of Plenty" and "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You" to outlaw songs such as "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "Jesse James" and children's trifles like "Car Song". The liner notes compare Guthrie's output to that of Schumann or Schubert, acknowledging their shared penchant for song-cycles: here, his Dust Bowl Ballads are represented by "Tom Joad" and around half a dozen songs featuring the word "dust" in the title; his travelling songs by a clutch of numbers likewise featuring the words "hobo" or "rambling"; and his celebrations of the New Deal industrial expansion by "Grand Coulee Dam" and "Talking Columbia". The latter is emblematic both of Guthrie's casual-but-sharp demotic style and his abiding concerns, which can be essentially summarised in the couplet "Thought about the dust, thought about the sand/ Thought about the people, and I thought about the land".
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments