Woody.html

These words were written across the front of Woody Guthrie's guitar when he sailed with the US Merchant Marine during the struggle against fascism. A photograph of Woody, holding his guitar, was taken at McSorley's Old Ale House (here in New York, and right down the street from Cooper Union). A friend of mine, concerned about my asserting that this would seem inconsistent with my efforts at Reconcilliation, asked that I change it. At first, I agreed, putting "This machine fights fascism" in its place. But Woody said what he said, and I'm going to stick with him. I don't think that anyone will actually believe that my web page will kill anyone, and I continue to believe in reconcilliation. But fascism continues to be a threat to world peace and security, and I hope that my web page will help to drive a stake through it's heart (if it has one).

Here are Woody's comments about his art. They reflect my feelings about my art:

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good.
I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose.  
Bound to lose.  No good to nobody.  No good for nothing.  
Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly 
or too this or too that.  
Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck 
or hard traveling.  

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air 
and my last drop of blood.  
I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world 
and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, 
no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built,
I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself 
and in your work.  
And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts
of folks just about like you.

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get
several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs 
and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that 
poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got
any sense at all.  But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death
before I'd sing any such songs as that.  The radio waves and your movies 
and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and 
running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.

Woody Guthrie, "Born to Win,"