For the past few years there's been a curious dream swimming round The Duke's Head-Space, showing up at irregular intervals, sometimes as much as 6 months between appearances. What it involves is something along the lines of this right here;
Myself and the ghost of Woody Guthrie are wandering through Oklahoma sometimes in 1934 or 1935. I dunno how we ended up there, and I ain't got a second's wortha time for to ponder it, what with the winds set for to rip the flesh off a man's hide, what with the dust throbbing all menacing in the atmosphere. Me and Woody's ghost, we need to hide out in barns, need to take shelter in abandoned train carriages tossed about the countryside.
Now and again the winds die down, and, with the noon-day sun piercing the black, Woody sits on an overturned tree and sings a song or two about migrants or unions or maybe even the dust-bowl we're wandering through right the hell there and then.
By rights, half the songs he's playing shouldn't even be written yet, but fuck it, ain't no space for any kinda pedantic nit-pickery when a fella's knee deep in slumber-time.
He sings about Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ Pasolini later made a film about, as opposed to the one who apparently hates gays, drug addicts, unwed couples etc. He sings about how this land was made for you and me, and he spits on a nearby Trespassers Prosecuted sign. He sings about his kids, he does some talking about New York and Kansas and California.
As he starts plucking out "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Feet?", the dust picks up again. Before the song's over, I can't see nor hear Woody no more. I shout on him, but every time a fella opens his yap he's coughing black horrors out his throat. Somewheres in the middle of it all I hear the old refrain "So long, s'been good to know ya", and then I wake up.
I usually pick up the guitar and holler a minute or two, then think better of it and throw on a Woody Guthrie recording instead.
Woody Guthrie means something to The Duke, is the truth of the matter. Maybe he's a cipher for some kind of idealized existence a fella would like to find himself part of, some sort of train-hoppin', folk-singin', picket-linin', ramblin', tramplin' life on the outskirts of Everywhere. Musically, too, there's an ideal there a fella clings to, a punk rock ethic long before it was punk rock, wandering around playing shows, playing benefits, recording songs in mammoth sessions with scarcely a concern for the guitar being in tune or the voice being in key, just stories and sonnets that need to get pressed right the hell now. A purity, an intensity.
Article comments
1 - gypsyman
It sounds like a great documentary all right, I hope somehow to be able to get my dirty hands on it.
Woody will always hold a special place in my heart and sould. I grew up on a staple diet of him, The Weavers, Pete Seeger et. al. I actually got to see one of the great Pete Seeger Arlo Guthrie concerts back in 1981.
Have you heard the great tribute album put out a while back for Woody and Leadbelly? U2, Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and all sorts of others got together to sing on this. You haven't lived to you hear Little Richard singing Rock Island Line.
great review
gypsyman
2 - Vern Halen
I've got that cover album, but in many cases, Woody's originals are the better versions. Springsteen's version of I Aiin't Got no Home is priceless, as is U2's Jesus Christ. But Springsteen's other offering, Vigilante Man, pales in comparison. I just wish someone had tried to remake Woody's rendition of The Wreck of the Old 97.
3 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
hey folks.
I ain't heard the tribute record, but it sounds like somethin i'm gonna have to get my hands on.
Oh, and Gypsyman, Pete Seeger plays a couple Woody songs during his interviews in this. Fantastic, even though he admits he hasn't much voice left. I thought it sounded marvellous, though.
4 - Mark Saleski
hey, i have that same damn dream!
...well, except that it involves janeane garofalo, wandering around the coast of maine and, as you would say, much filthing.
5 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
haha Mark, in the dream i relate yonder, my trousers stay on throughout. does Janeane maybe sing a song or two about the unions?
6 - Mark Saleski
she's "singin'" alright!!
7 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
!!shock!!
8 - Mark Saleski
it is a dream, after all!
9 - Lerkst
I think the reason Woody's legacy doesn't ebb and tide, is because of the strength of it. The strength of his music comes from the simplicity of the songs.
I can sit down and sing "Vigilante Man, Against the Law, Wreck '07" and many more, and it never gets boring. In FACT, it helps me as a singer---Woody's lyrics flow so natch, that now I can improvise more fluently. It's quite remarkable if you think about it.
Woody's music and his legacy, are like an oil spill. The flames and the oil spill througout the music industry, touching all forms of music.
It doesn't just jump out at you. Open your eyes, look a little closer. Woody is there---he's EVERYwhere. Once he gets his hooks into you, you're never the same.