Okay, Pete Seeger may just be cooler than Obama. Maybe cooler than Dylan.
My favorite verse, which I don’t think I’ve ever heard before, begins “In the squares of the city,” a little over two minutes in. The dig at private property that follows ain’t bad either.
(via EOTAW, via Unfogged.)
UPDATE: I’m leaving the first video link to memorialize the irony TMK pointed out in comments — that HBO was lame enough to force YouTube to take down a song decrying private property in the name of a better America. Zoiks.
Right, but notice that this performance is the private property of H.B.O., which has graciously forced YouTube to remove the video.
Definitely a better (and more radical) song than it gets credit for. The first time I heard the “private property” verses was on Vol. 1 of the Folkways set “The Asch Recordings.”
In case anyone reading this is an aspiring Guthrie scholar:
The Woody Guthrie Archives (http://www.woodyguthrie.org/archives/archivesindex.htm) are located on W 57th in Manhattan and have some great primary source materials on Woody.