The
first thing that comes to mind is that Guthrie and Whitman's work has
been twisted and misinterpreted to fit advertising. Like
using Whitman to sell jeans or using Born in The USA and Springsteen
to sell a Republican Campaign, Guthrie's song has been used to “sell
America.”
“This Land Is Your Land” is taken as a very patriotic song(played
at probably every July 4th
celebration) and I would argue that it is (dissent is patriotic), but
as familiar as I am with the tune and words I had no idea that it
included the lines, “In
the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I
seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?”
Guthrie
is questioning the values of America. Not of the people who he
champions, but of the system.
Here
is another verse that I think has been obscured:
As
I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And
that sign said - no tress passin'
But
on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now
that side was made for you and me!
Interesting
that these are the two verses that no one ever sings or recollects.
A
big difference between Whitman and Guthrie is their circumstances in
life and how that may have shaped their political views. Whitman
rambles and wanders because he can. The persona that Guthrie presents
rambles because he has to; from job to job, for survival. A
tid bit from his bio:
The
Great Depression hit the Guthrie family hard and when the
drought-stricken Great Plains transformed into the infamous Dust
Bowl, Guthrie left his family in 1935 to join the thousands of
"Okies" who were migrating West in search of work. Like
many other "Dust Bowl refugees," Guthrie spent his time
hitchhiking, riding freight trains, and when he could, quite
literally singing for his supper. With his guitar and harmonica he
sang in the hobo and migrant camps, developing into a musical
spokesman for labor and other left-wing causes. These hardscrabble
experiences would provide the bedrock for Guthrie's songs and
stories, as well as fodder for his future autobiography, "Bound
for Glory." It was also during these years that Guthrie
developed a taste for the road that would never quite leave him.
(http://www.biography.com/people/woody-guthrie-9323949)
There
is definitely a relationship between art and politics. Many use their
art to express their political views. Whitman was so radical, he got
fired from the Daily Eagle. Democracy and freedom are at the core of
their work, though Guthrie's had a more critical view. He was
incensed by the capitalist machine and what it did to the average
American. He had been accused of being a Communist, which definitely
surprised me considering the fact that up until about 10 minutes ago
I thought “This Land had been a 'Yay America!” song. History has
erased the radical(both the man and within the song); the protest is
wiped clean from “This Land” and it has been transformed into
almost a second
American national anthem.
Isn't Leaves of Grass kind of a type of anthem? Isn't part of what
Whitman set out to do; to create a new American poetry?
Unfortunately,
I do not think that we as Americans could be called unified at all.
The division in this country is at an extreme and only getting wider.
