Woody Guthrie: "I ain't a gonna kill nobody"

[JanMichael]

"I ain't a gonna kill nobody"

"I took a bath this morning in six war speeches, and a sprinkle of peace. Looks like ever body is declaring war against the forces of force. That's what you get for building up a big war machine. It scares your neighbors into jumping on you, and then of course they them selves have to use force, so you are against their force, and they're aginst yours. Look like the ring has been drawed and the marbles are all in. The millionaires has throwed their silk hats and our last set of drawers in the ring. The fuse is lit and the cannon is set, and somebody is in for a frailin. I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns."

-Woody Guthrie
================================================

How do you feel about this statement? Iraq? I agree.

[markus]

1. A fantastic quote

Just curious, where did you find this? Where was it every published?

I need to add this one to the quote file.

[RC]

2. Sounds good to me.

Send our politicians where ever do their own fighting. Make sure there is a shortage of flak jackets, wrong ammo, camouflaged, military looking civilian vehicles... You know the drill.

[pocoloco]

3. Woody rocks and Arlo too,

but Dildo had a pretty good idea of how to stop the fighting that worked at least once.

[kentuck]

4. One of the reasons they called him a "communist" amongst other names

Woody is a true American hero.

[wtmusic]

5. Give Bush a gun? That's a laugh

he would pee his pants.

[Terwilliger]

6. pinko-commie pacifist

anti-gun anarcho-socilaist utopian amotivated slacker hippie!

[JanMichael]

14. Yep, me too.

What really scares the reichwingers is that we ARE the people. And there's always more of us:evilgrin:

[KG]

7. 'this machine kills fascists'

i do believe he had that written on his guitar.

[JanMichael]

8. Metaphorically speaking of course!

If forced to defend oneself one has to do what one has to do.

[OneBlueSky]

15. not sure, but it may have been his banjo . . .

in any event, Pete Seeger took a cue from Woody . . . his banjo says "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender" . . . both these guys are true American heroes, imo . . .

[babzilla]

16. its true, his machine did kill fascists

And on the other side, it didn't say nothin.




and it tweren't no banjo neither.

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

9. Nice English

Speaking the language may help.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

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[Kanary]

17. I'd rather know a grammar-challenged humanitarian

than hard-hearted intelligentsia.

Peace

Kanary

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[ConsAreLiars]

11. link here

http://www.woodyguthrie.org/woodysez.htm

lotsa lyrics here
http://thunder.prohosting.com/~wguthrie/lyrics.html

In particular: http://thunder.prohosting.com/~wguthrie/0this_land.html

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters
This land was made for you and me

[JanMichael]

13. How much of "This Land" did you sing in school?

I know my public schools only had us sing:

"This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters
This land was made for you and me

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
This land was made for you and me

I roamed and rambled, and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me, a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me"

Which is missing some really significant lines...

===================================
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

Manuscript Version, 1940

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream Waters
This land was made for you and me

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
This land was made for you and me

I roamed and rambled, and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me, a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me

Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property
But on the back side it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me

When the sun came shining, then I was strolling
In wheat fields waving, and dust clouds rolling
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting
This land was made for you and me

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief office I saw my people--
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
This land was made for you and me

Later Changed to:

In the squares of the city by the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office I saw my people
And some were stumbling and some were wondering if
This land was made for you and me.

As I went rumbling that dusty highway
I saw a sign that said private property
But on the other side it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me.

Later Added:

Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking my freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.


Alternate Lyrics (1952)

This land is your land, this land is my land
From the redwood forest to the New York island.
From the snow-capped mountains to the Gulf Stream waters
This land is made for you and me.

As I go walkin' my ribbon of highway
I see all around me my blue blue skyway
Everywhere around me the wind keeps a-whistlin'
This land is made for you and me.

I'm a-chasin' my shadow out across this roadmap
To my wheat fields waving, to my cornfield dancing
As I go walkin' this wind keeps talkin'
This land is made for you and me.

I can see your mailbox, I can see your doorstep
I can feel my wind rock your tip-top treetop
All around your house there my sunbeam whispers
This land is made for you and me.

typed and submitted by Emma McCreary
=================================================

Hmm. I wonder why they left out the rest?

[ConsAreLiars]

21. well

I don't recall singing any part of it, or much at all, for that matter.

I doubt very much that anything beginning with "this land is your land" would have passed the "don't rock the boat" mentality of the times.

On the other hand, at that time there WAS a sense of the commons - a sense that "of, by, and for the people" meant something real, so it is possible.

Searching a bit further for Woody Guthrie material I also came across this:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/

This is a biographical piece:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wwghtml/wwgessay.html

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

22. "But on the other side it didn't say nothing"

:evilgrin:

[corporatewhore]

19. Woody Guthrie on undocumented workers rights

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

From "Deportee" by Woody Guthrie
Damn we need you now woody

[Zomby Woof]

20. Woody Sez

That was the name of a column he wrote in one of the major socialist papers of his day. Hunting those down is worth the effort, expressing much of the same kind of sentiment as above.

I first read your above quote in Joe Klein's biography of Guthrie, and it floored me.


More nuggets:

"I ain't necessarily a communist, but it is true I have been in the red most of my life."

"Right wing, left wing, chicken wing, same thing."

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

23. "This Website Kills Fascists"

http://memewatch.com/thelist/archives/000398.html

July 02, 2003
This post kills fascists
Over at Raster.org, I saw a tag, "this website kills fascists" and it reminded me of how Levi Asher put "this website kills fascists on one of his early sites, possibly Queensboro Ballads. So I did a little simple memetracking at Google. A basic search on "kills fascists" yielded a page full of links to the original Woody Guthrie reference (the sticker, I think it was, that read "this machine kills fascists" that he had stuck on his guitar). So then I did a search to skip the machine results (+this "kills fascists" -machine). That brought up a lot of results related to a site called This Pirate Kills Fascists and to the phrase "this computer kills fascists." A search to skip those (+this "kills fascists" -machine -computer -pirate") came up with a more varied set of results, including:
This album kills fascists (Billy Bragg)
This sneetch kills fascists (Dr. Seuss)
your musical engine kills fascists
This blog kills fascists (saladwithsteve)
To paraphrase Woody Guthrie, this website kills fascists (Auntie)
This website kills fascists (Dancing about Architecture)
Did I forget to mention Woody Guthrie? This website kills fascists (Queensboro Ballads)
This site kills fascists (RasterWeb)
This guitar kills fascists (Rhino)
Other things that kills fascists: this radio, this poem, this mix tape, this music, I also heard she, this amp, this comic, this CD, this grin, this sound, you don't care about the whereabouts of a gun, as long as it, this Canuck. Posted by xian at July 2, 2003 12:19 PM