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Woody Guthrie is a musician who has a deep influence on American music. Guthrie’s upbringing and early life had a great influence on the lyrical content of his songs in later life. His father was a democrat and a racist; also rumored to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Woody experienced the Great Depression in his early twenties and witnessed “drought, disease, crop failures and farm foreclosures” (Billet) in the farmlands of America.
Guthrie and his songs represent the angst of the downtrodden and American class struggles in the early years of American history. His songs were complex, contradictory in tone and voice; and yet they swayed many different audiences. His lyrics and views are considered radical and his songs are performed at union rallies and demonstrations, even today.
Among his most famous songs are ‘This Land is Your Land’ and ‘I ain't got no home in this world anymore’. Guthrie is known for his anti-establishment, anti-capitalistic stance and many of his songs reflect this passionate hatred of the ‘system’. Following Guthrie’s footsteps through the 1980s, Bruce Springsteen also penned many classics which spoke of the dust bowl era in American history (Rolling Stone).
In fact, the song ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’ was directly influenced by Woody’s ‘This Land is Your Land’ (Rolling Stone). Bruce Springsteen always felt a deep spiritual connection with Woody’s songs. He mentioned in 1996 that Woody’s songs forced people to think of the good times in bad times and to think of other people. Bruce feels that Woody’s idea was “salvation isn’t individual and maybe we don’t rise and fall on our own” (Rolling Stone).
In essence his songs had this sense and feeling of collective consciousness which influences all our lives. ‘This Land is Your Land’ has many words that reflect a sense of despair and hopelessness, yet betray a sense of ‘wanting to belong’ and wanderlust. Words such as ‘As I was walking the ribbon of highway’ or ‘I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps’ depict a sense of longing to get somewhere or to succeed in faraway lands.
We see similar overtones in Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’ – ‘Men walking along the railroad tracks, going someplace, there’s no going back’. Guthrie’s music had a strong bent of social activism. Springsteen was exposed to Guthrie’s music and that influenced his songwriting in his later years. Many of Bruce’s songs have deep political tones and are a reflection of the human condition.
Like Guthrie, Bruce also writes about the labor classes and small town life in America. For instance, in the song ‘Born to Run’, Bruce refers to the frustrations of the working class with the words ‘sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream’ and ‘we gotta get out while we're young, ‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run’.
Bruce’s songs bring to life the reality of the American dream and those who get left behind. His songs convey anguish and the tragedy of unfulfilled dreams. He also speaks of job losses, bankruptcies and shutdowns, which are a part of the real America. Bruce has managed to continue Woody’s tradition of folk music, now mixed with rock and roll.
His music has inspired many singers and song writers. The style is very similar to Woody and the songs have a deep purpose – to convey a political or social message and influence change. Guthrie’s ‘I ain’t got no home in this world anymore’ also signifies the life and times of a ‘wandrin worker’, ‘roamin around’ and the big divide due to different classes – ‘Rich man took my home and drove me from my door, And I ain't got no home in this world anymore’.
A similar sentiment about urban life and despondency is reflected in Bruce’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’. He speaks of being ‘bruised and battered, I couldn't tell what I felt. I was unrecognizable to myself’. The song also echoes aspects of Guthrie’s words like ‘wandrin worker’ with words such as ‘Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin' away, On the streets of Philadelphia’.
There are a few more key similarities between ‘This Land is Your Land’ and Bruce’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Both the songs are seen to have a nationalistic and patriotic fervor. Audiences have sometimes interpreted these songs wrongly. Woody’s song clearly brings to light the disparities between the classes and the fight for land rights while ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ speaks more about the Vietnam War and the plight of war veterans.
Over the years many of Bruce’s songs continue to represent the issues and challenges faced by the downtrodden masses, workers, the homeless and the hungry. In a sense his songs show a mirror to modern society and its ills. The violence and crime in ghettos is clearly referred to in ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ when he says ‘Saw my reflection in a window and didn't know my own face. Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin' away, on the streets of Philadelphia’.
According to Tris McCall (“SXSW: Springsteen's keynote address honors Woody Guthrie”), Bruce had no intention to fill Guthrie’s big shoes. He was deeply influenced by Joe Klein’s book on Woody Guthrie, his music and his life. This inspirited him to rethink the purpose of his music. With a change in strategy, Bruce is now working with his favorite form of rock and pop music to convey social messages and address problems in society.
References
Billet, Alex. “Woody Guthrie: Songs that prove to you this is your world". ISR.org,
isreview.org/issue/85/woody-guthrie-songs-prove-you-your-world. Accessed 23 January 2017.
McCall, Tris. “SXSW: Springsteen's keynote address honors Woody Guthrie”.
Inside Jersey, 15 March 2012, www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2012/03/sxsw_springsteens_keynote_addr.html. Accessed 23 January 2017.
Rolling Stone. “The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen's 25 Biggest Heroes”. rollingstone.com,
10 January 2014, www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-ties-that-bind-bruce-springsteens-25-biggest-heroes-20140110/woody-guthrie-19691231. Accessed 23 January 2017.
