the.black.lamb: WEEK 9 | Woody Guthrie

Listening to this week's songs, I was conflicted about this Woody Guthrie fellow. I could not quite decided whether or not I liked his work, his voice, or his music. To me, the idea of Woody Guthrie was a shifty one. And maybe it is because his songs had a certain kick to them or it was just that I did not like the stories he told. Either way, I found him disagreeable until I started my reading on him.

"He is leather". That comment struck me like no other, and it was within the first two-sentence description of Woody in our readers. As I continued to read more about it, my bias shifted. This always happens, doesn't it? You don't know the full story until you read up on it or really dig deep into the roots of it. I came to respect Woody, although I was not such a terribly big fan of his smoking…

He is leather.

A man wrapped with the lives and stories of the those things around him. He was a whirlwind, as strong of a force as those dust storms he sang about. I was trying to relate to one of his songs but none really embedded an image in my mind that I felt compelled to run after. At this point, I felt that I needed to visually understand this man and what his songs were about.

Woody was a man, and a man like no other. Although his photos were limited, man, you could read his life story by the look on his face. There was so much that spoke through the glint in his eyes and the way his lips furled around his cigarette. That cigarette…

I found it ironic how the smoke of a cigarette reminded me of a gust of dust just rising in billows. Granted those two do not necessarily look the same, but it is that idea of power - one that embodies it metaphorically and the other that demonstrates it physically - that they both share.

Cigarette smoke and dust bowl… the pictures of the dust bowl were horrific. Gigantic clouds of dust looming over houses that looked so small and ready to be demolished by this monster. Woody Guthrie really struck it on the nail when he sang about the dust bowl. Even if he added a bit of humor into his words, they were still grave.

And then there was the picture I was of three young ladies all wearing gas masks against the dust. That's where it all clicked for me.

Woody Guthrie was the voice of the people. While his songs were not toxic, their subjects were.