Springsteen's ghosts: should a folk song rage or gather?
WOODY GUTHRIE vs PETE SEEGER go head to head — and every jab is rooted in real history.
My guitar had 'This Machine Kills Fascists' painted on it — a song is a weapon aimed at the man who grinds you down, not a campfire singalong.
But a weapon fired once is spent, Woody; a song sung by ten thousand throats can't be jailed, banned, or blacklisted — and believe me, they tried to blacklist me.
Ten thousand pretty voices don't feed a dust-bowl family; the truth has to sting before it can sing.
It stung when I sang it to the House committee, and it kept singing after — because I taught the room the chorus, and a chorus outlives every microphone they take away.
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