'The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done'

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:46 pm

The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done by Woody Guthrie I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum. Highly educated from history I have come. I built the Rock of Ages, 'twas in the Year of One And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two, Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due; I'm the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun, And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I was straw boss on the Pyramids, the Tower of Babel, too; I opened up the ocean let the migrant children through, I fought a million battles and I never lost a one, And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I beat the daring Roman, I beat the daring Turk, Defeated Nero's army with thirty minutes work, I fought the greatest leaders and I licked them everyone And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I stopped old Caesar's Romans, and I stopped the Kubla Khan; I took but half an hour's work to beat the Pharaoh's bands; I knocked old Kaiser Bill flat, then I dumped the bloody Huns, And that's about the biggest thing that man has ever done. I was in the Revolution when we set the country free; Me and a couple of Indians that dumped the Boston tea; We won the battle at Valley Forge, the battle of Bully Run; And that was about the biggest thing that man has ever done. Next, we won the slavery war, some other folks and me, And every slave from sea to sea was all turned loose by me. I divorced old Madam slavery, and I wed this freedom dame. And that's about the biggest thing that man has ever done. And then I took to farming on the great midwestern plain, The dust it blowed a hundred years, but never come a rain' Well, me and a million other fellas left there on the run And that was about the biggest thing that man has ever done. There's a man across the ocean, I guess you know him well, His name is Adolf Hitler, goddam his soul to hell; We'll kick him in the panzers and put him on the run, And that'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done. I'm living with my freedom wife in this big land we built; It takes all forty eight States for me to spread my quilt. Our kids are several millions now; they run from sun to sun. And that's about the biggest thing that man has ever done. I built mines and mills and factories to run for Uncle Sam; I turned th' ploughs and wheels to feed my soldiers in your lands; This Nazi job's a tough 'un, it'll take us everyone, 'Cause this is about the biggest thing that man has ever done. There's warehouse guys and teamsters and guys that skin the cats Women that run my steel mill, the furnace and the blast We'll stop these Axis rattlesnakes and thieves of old Nippon And this will be the biggest thing that man has ever done. I'd better quit my talking, 'cause I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, The world is diggin' slavery's grave and when the job is done This'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done <img src="http://www.ncf.ca/~ek867/woodie.machine1.jpg" style="border:0;"/> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rigorousintuition>Rigorous Intuition</A> at: 3/16/06 8:20 pm

by **steve vegas** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:58 pm

Wow. Thanks for the reminder. We could really use some of Woody's spirit now. I always think that right now is the worst it's ever been, but it's been pretty bad before and people fought back. I really believe that can happen again in spite of our seemingly insurmountable problems. I tend to forget that we are locked in a constant struggle with the fascist overlords. Growing up in the sunny 70's I always had the sense that the war was won and there only small battles would be necessary here and there to maintain the new and improved status quo. That of course was a fantasy, starkly exposed by the Reagan revolution. I remember standing at the bus stop the morning after Reagan was inaugurated, even at the tender age of 12 I knew very bad things were on the horizon. Anyway, Woody had to fight the fascists, and so do we, and so will our kids, it never ends. At least we are awake enough to know that there is a struggle, and like Bob Marley said, "Never forget, no way, who you are and where you stand in the struggle"...

by **albion** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:12 pm

A Searchlight special feature: Woody Guthrie a tribute to a voice against fascism and racism Woody Guthrie: Natural born anti-fascist by Stetson Kennedy “Do you have any evidence of Woody having ever committed any disloyal act?” my lawyer/friend/neighbour asked the two FBI agents who had dropped into his office to ask if it were true that “one Woodrow Wilson Guthrie” was staying at my home on the outskirts of Jacksonville, Florida. “Well, there’s this,” one of them replied, fishing from his briefcase an 8x10 photograph of Woody holding his guitar with the inscription writ large across its face, THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS! It did, too. From the very first moment that fascism reared its head on the world scene - first in Mussolini’s Italy, then aped in Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and then imposed by the two of them in Franco’s Falangist Spain - Woody was singing his heart out against it. And long after the Axis defeat in 1945, Woody remained a militant anti-fascist until he drew his last breath on 3 October 1967. That figures, because fascism was the mortal enemy of everything Woody believed in - people, unions, democracy, human rights, justice, peace, world brotherhood, you name it. So Woody didn’t have to wait until Mussolini gloated, “We fascists have ridden roughshod over the putrid corpse of parliamentary democracy, and will do so again if need be!” or for Il Duce’s son-in-law Count Ciano to report how “troops of Ethiopian horsemen blossomed like roses when bombed from the air”. Or for Hitler to spell out in Mein Kampf his master plan for 1,000 years of world dominion, and a “final solution for European Jewry”. Or the Axis-backed fascist overthrow of the republican government of Spain. Much less the tardy US declaration of war against the Axis. Fact is, a lot of us cut our political wisdom teeth on the works of those British socialists, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who ended one of their 1930s books with the question, “What are we to do?” and answered “Build the Popular Front against fascism!” Like the book Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, which Woody put together with folk musicologist Alan Lomax in 1941, Woody’s life work consisted of making up and singing songs to strengthen the arm of the poor, and especially their unions, in their struggle to shake off the shackles of the rich. Since the function of fascism was the exact opposite, Woody was what you might call a natural-born anti-fascist. But he said it - and sang it - best. During World War II the US Office of War Information hired him to write some “morale-building songs”, but his were so explicitly anti-fascist not one was ever released. (The War Department did put out a four-page booklet to tell servicemen what fascism was all about, but Congress made them recall it. Hasn’t been seen since.) “There ain’t but two sides, the working people’s side and the big bosses’ side,” Woody wrote. “The union side and the Hitler side. The first thing that Hitler cracked down on when he took the Nazi Chamber was the Trade Unions. And it will be the Trade Unions that beat Hitler. The best job you can do for your country, next to being a good soldier for the working people. “You don’t have to go to Europe to find plenty to do to beat Hitler, stick up for what’s right, freedom of speech, press, radio, meetings, collective bargaining, the right to get together for decent pay, hours, rent, prices … The biggest thing that’s happening right now in the United States is us.” That was the stuff Woody’s songs were made of. He didn’t mind others singing about love and such, but as far as he was concerned, “A song that don’t say somethin ain’t worth nothin”. Of course, what his were worth, and what they fetched, were two very different things. I remember getting many a mimeographed, self-illustrated copy in the mail, scrawled over in Woody’s hand, “Here is my latest song. Hope you like it. If so, please send 25c.” It was much the same when it came to collecting even the $25 honorarium Woody generally got for singing on stage. “But it’s for a Good Cause!” protested one sponsor who wanted him to sing for free. “I don’t sing for bad causes,” was Woody’s rejoinder. Woody was never the armchair anti-fascist, mind you. When he received a wartime telegram saying “Got a dish-washing job on a Liberty Ship,” he jotted in his Notebook: Woman a-cryin and me a-flyin out the door and down the line! According to his sidekick Cisco Houston, when one of those ships carrying material to Britain and the Soviets was torpedoed (despite Woody’s prayers against “tin-fish”) he grabbed his guitar and kept playing, in the heroic tradition of dance bands when fire breaks out in the ballroom. And when a sister ship went down with all hands on board, Woody sang (as if in anticipation of all the names engraved on the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington): Tell me, what were their names, boys, what wurrr their names? Did you have a friend On that good Reuben James? Woody was rightfully proud of his membership in the National Maritime Union and kept paing his dues long after he came ashore. Like all true folk philosophers he could say a lot in a few words, for example, “If we would just take the profit out of war, there wouldn’t be any”. In a 4 March 1942 entry in his Notebook for a letter to his unborn son, Woody had this to say: “Maybe I should talk to you about fascism. It is a big word and it hides in some pretty little places. It is nothing in the world but greed for profit and greed for the power to hurt and make slaves out of the people… But fascism can no more control the world than a bunch of pool hall gamblers and thugs can control America. Because all of the laws of man working in nature and history and evolution say for all human beings to come always closer and closer together… “How come me launching into a talk about fascism to you - only 4 months on the way - not even here yet? Because in the whole big world… fascism and freedom are the only two sides battling… every other shades into the fight somewhere, I’m not worried about where you’ll be standing - but - how could I ever get this book wrote full unless some of it was cussing out facism? Like Tom Joad said to his dying mother in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, “wherever working people are fighting for their rights, I’ll be there”. That was Woody, all the way… We were all very confident back then - as Pete Seeger has never tired of singing - that there was “a better way on the way”. Woody often put it in terms of a great day coming in which we (the human race) would all be members of “One Big Union”. One of the most everlasting of Woody’s countless contributions is his song, This Land Is Your Land, which has virtually replaced America (that rewrite of God Save the King) as the US national anthem. Its refrain: This Land is your land, This land is my land, This land belongs to you and me… This song has taken root in the heart of Americans of all ages - all the title deeds to the contrary not withstanding. That Woody was not unaware of this complication was evidenced by his gentle yet firm revolutionary admonition for us to “take it easy, but take it!” That Woody’s prenatal exhortations against fascism did not fall on deaf ears is attested by Arlo Guthrie’s singing career. That word fascism may still be understood on the eastern side of the Atlantic, where it wreaked the most havoc, but it is still almost unheard of in the USA today. (Recently when a student-made transcript of an interview with me came back from the oral history archive at the University of Florida, it read, “Following the faddist invasion of Spain…”) During the 1950s, when McCarthyite witch-hunting was at its peak, Alan Lomax was in London and I was in Budapest, and we both begged Woody to pack up his guitar and songbag and come to Europe. He never made it in the flesh, but as a legendary folk hero Woody Guthrie lives on in people’s struggles around the world. Just for fun, before concluding let me speak to two apolitical components of the Legend of Woody Guthrie: that he slept with his boots on, and ate standing up. The former was often true, and I have concluded that the habit was acquired during his hoboing years, when one needed to be ready to run when aroused by a railroad cop. And he did on occasion rise from a dining table and take his plate to a shelf or mantlepiece. His own explanation: there were no tables in a hobo jungle, nor around the chuck wagons of the Dust Bowl refugees. But the Legacy of Woody Guthrie, which will always stand mankind in good stead, is the necessity for solidarity in throwing off the yoke of oppressors, and building a better world of peace and justice. One of my fondest memories of Woody is May Day 1947, when we marched together in the writers’ contingent of the parade of progressives in New York City. When we reached Union Square, Woody climbed up on a ledge protruding from a bank, the better to hear the speakers. A cop spotting him from the other side of the square came charging with his billystick and bellowing, “Get offa that bank!” Woody climbed down with the utmost dignity, saying, “Very well officer, but a little courtesy please. Don’t forget I help pay your salary.” Afterwards when the two of us were driving to upstate New York for some meeting, when Woody’s time came at the mike he plucked at his scalp (as he often did, as if for lice) and told the audience: “On the way up here listening to the car radio we heard the announcer talking about what a fine May Day parade the Mayor and all the Big Shots and American Legion had down Fifth Avenue, and how all of us Lefties ‘got lost in the shuffle over on Eighth Avenue’ … The way I see it, that’s what we’ve gotta do - keep shufflin’ …” Copyright © 2000, Searchlight <a href="http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/features/woody/woodyNatural.htm">www.searchlightmagazine.c...atural.htm</a> Another from the Searchlight: Woody Guthrie: Anti-fascist folk hero; by Steve Silver <a href="http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/features/woody/woodyHero.htm">www.searchlightmagazine.c...dyHero.htm</a> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=albion@rigorousintuition>albion</A> at: 3/16/06 8:20 pm

by **chiggerbit** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:27 pm

I had a relative die less than a year ago of the same disease that killed Woody. Thank God they are free now. I had the most incredible experience when I was on my way to this relative's funeral. Less than a mile from home, as I was crossing a bridge I saw a white bird on the floor of the bridge, and it didn't fly away as I went by. I parked just past the bridge and went back, thinking it was hurt. It looked like a tame, pure white dove-type bird with a band on it's leg. As I tried to catch it, it hopped up on the railing and awkwardly flew off, as if it weren't used to flying, as if it were newly free. It looked like it was going to hit the water, then at the last minute, started soaring up until it flew higher than the bridge, and off out of sight. I'm not into the supernatural, but I have to say it was as if there was a message being conveyed that said, "Free at last, I am free at last." Death is a most merciful release for those who suffer from Huntington's. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 3/16/06 8:50 pm

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:36 pm

Complete poem <a href="http://bobdylan.com/songs/guthrie.html">here</a>. Dylan wanted his recitation to be the first track of a live album in 1962. Columbia refused and the album wasn't released. Nice bootleg, though. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">  And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin' Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin' Where do you look for this oil well gushin' Where do you look for this candle that's glowin' Where do you look for this hope that you know is there And out there somewhere And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways You can touch and twist And turn two kinds of doorknobs You can either go to the church of your choice Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital You'll find God in the church of your choice You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital And though it's only my opinion I may be right or wrong You'll find them both In the Grand Canyon At sundown

by **NewKid** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:53 am

"Nothing as long as you live will ever be more important." -- Garrison in JFK

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:54 am

I've had the good fortune to work with Arlo Guthrie and his son Abe a few times. The last time I spoke to Abe as he was leaving. I asked him to suggest to Arlo that he pick up the anti-fascism guitar again because we need it as much as ever. Abe smiled in a way that said 'I know, but he does what he does.' I noticed that very quickly after Johnny Cash died a vapid movie reducing his life to a love story came out to displace the social messages of the man's career. I didn't know what Johhny Cash was about until I read the lyrics to 'The Man in Black' and this allowed me see what that bad movie had done to pre-emptively trivialize the man. [ www.azlyrics.com ] JOHNNY CASH LYRICS "Man In Black" Well, you wonder why I always dress in black, Why you never see bright colors on my back, And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone. Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on. I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he's a victim of the times. I wear the black for those who never read, Or listened to the words that Jesus said, About the road to happiness through love and charity, Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me. Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes, But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black. I wear it for the sick and lonely old, For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold, I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been, Each week we lose a hundred fine young men. And, I wear it for the thousands who have died, Believen' that the Lord was on their side, I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died, Believen' that we all were on their side. Well, there's things that never will be right I know, And things need changin' everywhere you go, But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right, You'll never see me wear a suit of white. Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day, And tell the world that everything's OK, But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back, 'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:08 am

Maybe America's most misunderstood icon. I think "The Man in Black" has a powerful bookend in "When the Man Comes Around," from his last album. And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder: One of the four beasts saying: "Come and see." And I saw. And behold, a white horse.... There's a man goin' 'round takin' names. An' he decides who to free and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down. When the man comes around. The hairs on your arm will stand up. At the terror in each sip and in each sup. Will you partake of that last offered cup, Or disappear into the potter's ground. When the man comes around. Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singin'. Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum. Voices callin', voices cryin'. Some are born an' some are dyin'. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come. And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Till Armageddon, no Salam, no Shalom. Then the father hen will call his chickens home. The wise men will bow down before the throne. And at his feet they'll cast their golden crown. When the man comes around. Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still. Whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still. Whoever is filthy, let him be filthy still. Listen to the words long written down, When the man comes around. Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers. One hundred million angels singin'. Multitudes are marchin' to the big kettle drum. Voices callin', voices cryin'. Some are born an' some are dyin'. It's Alpha's and Omega's Kingdom come. And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. In measured hundredweight and penny pound. When the man comes around. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, And I looked and behold: a pale horse. And his name, that sat on him, was Death. And Hell followed with him.... Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rigorousintuition>Rigorous Intuition</A> at: 3/16/06 10:09 pm

by **FourthBase** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 3:13 am

Johnny Cash = a Shriner.

by **Qutb** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:36 am

"Johnny Cash = a Shriner." So what? Is that supposed to negate everything the man was and stood for? Are you suggesting he was some kind of deep cover masonic agent?

by **Gouda** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 9:48 am

Cash's a Shriner with a shiner - Took a few hits for the poor and dispossessed. Stood at the front lines as a reminder Of the prisoners the sick and old - For the least of these, in black he dressed. - Gouda OK, I'm no Cash. Nor a Shriner.

by **Gouda** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:07 pm

Prescription of Painful Ends Lucretius felt the change of the world in his time, the great republic riding to the height Whence every road leads downward; Plato in his time watched Athens Dance the down path. The future is a misted landscape, no man sees clearly, but at cyclic turns There is a change felt in the rhythm of events, as when an exhausted horse Falters and recovers, then the rhythm of the running hoofbeats is changed: he will run miles yet, But he must fall, we have felt it again in our own life time, shift and speed-up In the gallop of the world; and now perceive that, come peace or war, the progress of Europe and America Becomes a long process of deterioration—starred with famous Byzantiums and Alexandrias, Surely—but downward. One desires at such times To gather the insights of the age summit against future loss, against the narrowing mind and the tyrants, The pedants, the mystagogues, the barbarians: one builds poems for treasuries, time-conscious poems: Lucretius Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato smiling carves dreams, bright cells Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey, Our own time, much greater and far less fortunate, Has acids for honey, and for fine dreams The immense vulgarities of misapplied science and decaying Christianity: therefore one christens each poem in dutiful Hope of burning off at least the top layer of the time’s uncleanness, from the acid-bottles. --Robinson Jeffers When I Behold the Greatest When I behold the greatest and most wise Fall out of heaven, wings not by pride struck numb Like Satan's, but to gain some humbler crumb Of pittance from penurious granaries; And when I see under each new disguise The same cowardice of custom, the same dumb Devil that drove our Wordsworth to become Apologist of kings and priests and lies; And how a man may find in all he loathes Contentment after all, and so endear it By cowardly craft it grows his inmost own;-- Then I renew my faith with firmer oaths, And bind with more tremendous vows a spirit That, often fallen, never has lain prone. --Robinson Jeffers

by **marykmusic** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 2:32 pm

Who was that masked man? Robinson...? Woody had hard times, too, like most everyone in the Depression. And he could be fooled, used by others wor their ends. He was hired to write about the dam going up on the Columbia River, which was begun with a lie to Congress by FDR. He told them it would be a small dam, for irrigating and a bit of electricity production. It turned into a HUGE hydro-electric plant, far too big for the sparsely-settled area... until the Manhattan Project, and Hanford's part in it. Then that huge amount of electricity was needed, as well as the open rural area, for secrecy. Guthrie's song, "Roll On, Columbia," was used to sway public opinion in favor of keeping that dam's construction going. Congress had to keep finding the money somewhere. --MaryK

by **resonantmonkey** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:46 pm

Johnny Cash covered Wilco's "someone else's song". Jeff have you discovered Wilco's albums made with Billy Bragg that take Woody's old lyrics and put them to their own special alt.-folk/country style of music. They are fantastic. From "Mermaid Avenue Vol. I": "Sometimes I think I'm gonna lose my mind But it don't look like I ever do I loved so many people everywhere I went Some too much, others not enough I don't know, I may go down or up or anywhere But I feel like this scribbling might stay Maybe if I hadn't of seen so much hard feelings I might not could have felt other people's So when you think of me, if and when you do, Just say, another man's done gone Well, another man's done gone. Words by Woody Guthrie, date unknown Music by Billy Bragg, played by Tweedy and Bennett of Wilco. Please, I don't want to hear about how all the good 'Merican music is gone!

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:04 pm

Thanks for that, resonantmonkey; I was thinking of posting the same lyric earlier. From "She Came Along To Me":  And all creeds and kinds and colors Of us are blending Till I suppose ten million years from now We'll all be just alike Same color, same size, working together And maybe we'll have all of the fascists Out of the way by then Maybe so  I love the song, though I think the sentiment of unity=conformity is wrongfooted.

'The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done'

'The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done'

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Re: 'The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done'

Re: 'The Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done'

From Bob Dylan's 'Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie'

Re: From Bob Dylan's 'Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie'

Re: Woody, Arlo, and Abe

Good point about Cash

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Re: Good point about Cash

Re: Good point about Cash

Re: Good point about Cash

Good poetry will get you somewhere

Re: Good poetry will get you somewhere

Mermaid Avenue's great

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