Peggy Seeger 2023 Interview Talking About Elizabeth Cotten And "Freight Train"

Peggy Seeger 2023 interview talking about Elizabeth Cotten and "Freight Train"

New York City, 1943

" I could talk to you about fascism. It is a big word and it hides in some pretty little places.

It is nothing in the world but greed for profit and greed for the power to hurt and make slaves out of the people."

Woody Guthrie, from his diary to his daughter c. 1940s

Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art • Words and Wisdom by Nora Guthrie and Robert Santelli

an assortment of Woody Guthrie quotes, signatures, and poetry

Song of the day

(do you want the history of your favorite folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown)

"The Dying Cowboy" Cisco Houston, 1952

"The Dying Cowboy " or "Cowboys Lament" is based on an old sailors poem, written by Edwin Hubbell Chapin and published in 1839, "The Ocean Burial"

Edgar Allan Poe's "Southern Literary Messenger" vol V, pp.6l5-6l6, 1839

here's an example of the traditional song put to music by Eugene Jemison in 1954

by the 1880s, the lyrics had morphed into the famous cowboy song we all know and love, but it wasn't until 1910 that it was pared with its well-known melody by John Lomax in the album, "Cowboy Songs And Other Frontier Ballads" here (recorded 1942)

by far, the most interesting thing that happened to the song is that its meaning was reversed. in 1934, Carson Robison changed the lyrics and the song and titled it "Carry Me Back to The Lone Prairie" (recorded 1941) and several other contemporary famous country artists

like Sons of the Pioneers,

Riders in the Sky,

Gene Autry,

Johnny Bond,

and Roy Rogers.

covered this song.

this more Hollywood country version of the song changed the story away from the bitter toiling of cowhand workers and towards nostalgia for the West that fit right in with other popular country music of the 40s and 50s. At the same time, the song was covered by Cisco Houston, a leftwing activist and official Union Boy, among other progressives, as a criticism of working class conditions. This song is so utterly fascinating to me and the best way to visually and auditorially explain the historical split manufactured between folk and country.

Song of the day

(do you want the history of your favorite folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown)

"This Land Is Your Land" Woody Guthrie, 1940

the melody is originally based on "When the World's on Fire" by the Carter family, 1933, which was based on the older song and melody "What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire" by the Birmingham Jubilee Singers, 1928

woody Guthrie's song was written in response to the song "God Bless America" by Irving Berlin in 1938 (the original version was written in 1918) and performed by Kate Smith. He was tired of hearing it on the radio.

Like many of Woody's songs, "This Land is Your Land" is explicitly pro-worker and anti-exploitation. You could even argue that it's explicitly anti-private property. As this song got sanded down for the mainstream, its more radical themes and messages were somewhat forgotten, and it became a general patriotic song for children and adults to enjoy, the very thing that Guthrie sought to criticize in the first place.

there are many covers of this song for many different countries, but my favorite version is the live one by Pete Seeger performed in 1976, where he talks about its history as a socialist song and invites the audience to sing along with him.