The Radicalism of Woody Guthrie
Legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie is best known for his anthem “This Land Is Your Land,” which can come off as an innocuous ode to America if you aren’t listening closely. But the singer-songwriter was a lifelong socialist.
Woody Guthrie. (Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project
Woody Guthrie wrote those lyrics in the early 1950s, when he spent two years living in the Beach Haven apartment complex in Brooklyn. The song, “Old Man Trump,” refers to Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father, who owned the complex and allegedly barred Africans Americans from renting units. Guthrie, who had recently faced down a racist mob alongside Paul Robeson, minced no words when speaking about his landlord.
Guthrie’s lyrics might come as a surprise to those who know him solely for the schoolhouse version of “This Land is Your Land,” which seems like a paean to the National Parks Service. But Guthrie was a lifelong radical, who not only intended those lyrics much more literally than they’re typically sung, but who wrote three additional, often excluded verses challenging private property, poverty, and the capitalist state:
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