Woodie Guthrie is generally considered the grandfather of modern American folk music.  He was a man “of the people”.  An activist who tried to give voice to those who were not empowered to fully take part in the “American Dream”.  He was not a sophisticated man nor (in my opinion) much of a singer.  He was, however, a raw poet and gifted with the ability to bring into popular verse the heart of a nation that continues to define itself by how we treat “the least of these, our brothers”. (Whew, that was a long run-on sentence!)

Later in his life he became more and more frustrated and tended toward the socialist political philosophy.  I don’t  fault him for turning in that direction.  This is a free country, after all. He was sincere in his belief that “something different” should be done to include the many he found on the fringes.  In any case, this song particularly brought to the entire country his vision of our shared experience.

Note that the questions (on the worksheet) tend to be rather advanced for the English student.  I am still experimenting with different ways to use the Q&A portion of the program to build your competence in conversational English.

The free MP3 is made available by a group on www.archive.org ,

Thanks Anthony Bowman and Ourmedia for doing such a great job.