Letter from Woodie Guthrie to Alan Lomax

As I said in my last post (though I don't expect you all to have read it since I submitted it so late), my thesis topic is patriotism in country music pre- and post-9/11. This is obviously a contemporary topic, but I plan to also do a case study of patriotism in country music in the early 1950s, when the fear of communism first washed over the country, because I think a similar thing happened back then in the music.

I went to the Library of Congress' site and found old letters written from Woodie Guthrie to Alan Lomax. We all know Guthrie was a notable folk singer, and the type of music he was making can be linked to the origins of country music as well. In this letter, from September 19, 1940, he writes for a couple of pages about his songwriting process and what makes a good song. As someone interested in popular music, this is really fascinating for me to read.

But the good stuff is when he talks about communism on page 5. He claims that people were calling him "a communist and a wild man" but he doesn't care because he doesn't really align himself with any party. He says later, "I've always knowed this was what I wanted to talk and sing about and I'm used to running into folks that complain but I don't ever intend to sell out or quit or talk or sing any different because when I do that drug store lemonade stuff I just open up my mouth and nothing comes out" (page 6). I think this quotation is awesome for a few reasons, but primarily because when the Cold War started and communism became a real fear for many Americans, many musicians changed their style and played the commercialized Nashville music so that they could prove to their audiences how truly "American" they were. While I know Guthrie wrote this a good ten years or so before this and at this point in time the Cold War wasn't close to starting, I love how strongly he says that he will not change and he doesn't care if he's labeled a communist. He probably didn't realize how bold it was going to sound to say things like that, especially for someone in the public's eye.

This letter is hard to read because of his handwriting and as far as I can tell the website doesn't provide a typed version of it, but it's just so cool to be able to see it so easily. I think the Library of Congress website is going to be very helpful for me as I go about my thesis research!