The history of protest music is filled with tunes that are often misinterpreted. One example is Woody Guthrie‘s “This Land Is Your Land”. Originally composed as “God Blessed America for Me”, instead of being a patriotic tune, it was meant as a caustic critique of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”. The tune’s most potent lyrics often get excluded: “There was a […]
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Released in 1940, Woody Guthrie’s first commercial recording Dust Bowl Ballads is widely cited as the first concept album. Based on both his personal experiences and John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath it details the 1930s Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression when farmers were dispossessed of their land due to weather conditions and bank foreclosures. This resulted in […]
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“This machine kills fascists” It would be impossible to overestimate Woody Guthrie’s impact on American folk music. His contributions to the canon of protest songs are undeniable. His music rallies against fascism, racism, and other injustices. Even though Woody’s initial attempts at a music career began in the early 1930s, he started to gain a wider audience in 1937 when […]
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Songs: Pyramid Scheme – Hurray For The Riff Raff This is the latest single and video by the project of Alynda Segarra (her last album, The Past Is Still Alive was one of the best protest albums of 2024). The lyrics explore the perils of internet culture, and it conveys the spirit of resilience that they are known for. Fucked […]
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