"Green Pop": Songs of the Earth - From Woody Guthrie to Neil Young | Pop Matters

"This Machine Kills Fascists"Woody Guthrie (Click photo to enlarge)

 

An interesting essay on how American folk songs of the Earth, from Woody Guthrie to Neil Young, tilled the soil for the rise of ‘Green Pop’.

From "Songs of the Earth: Woody Guthrie to Neil Young | Pop Matters by Laurence Coupe:  (thanks Brian "Keys Left Hangin'!) 

We could, of course, trace ‘Green Pop’ back through eras and cultures, but here I’m concentrating on the importance of folk music in the post-war years. 

The rise of environmental awareness among folksingers was particularly significant because it went hand in hand with the growing impact of the science of ecology. 

There was a folk revival in the US in the 1950s, led by groups such as the Weavers and the Kingston Trio, but ‘folk’ didn’t become generally identified with ‘protest’ until the 1960s: protest against not only racial oppression and the Vietnam War, but also against the damage being done to the natural world. That said, Woody Guthrie provided a model for this kind of music in the 1940s. 

With “Pastures of Plenty” (1941), Guthrie addresses one of the major environmental disasters to emerge in the 1930s: the Dust Bowl. Caused by a policy of aggressive exploitation of the land, it meant huge numbers of people had to escape the drought and dust storms that blighted several states, most notably Oklahoma. These ‘Dust Bowl migrants’ travelled westwards to California for work. Guthrie sings in sympathy and solidarity with these ‘Okies’.

The fate of the working class is seen as inseparable from the fate of the land itself.  

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Neil Young – “After the Goldrush” (1970)

The lyrics of “After the Goldrush” present a curious narrative.

It is probably Neil Young’s most cryptic composition. The title suggests that it takes place in mid-19th centuryAmerica, focussing on the disappointment felt by those who sought quick wealth. However, the singer’s dream drifts from a jousting event in medieval England to contemporary warfare, possibly involving nuclear weapons, and so to a science fiction scenario in which the destruction of Mother Nature necessitates the transfer of its ‘seed’ to a ‘new home in the sun’. We are not sure whether the ‘chosen ones’ are the elite, able to escape the consequences of the very state that they have brought about, or whether they are heroic figures trying to save nature. Does the singer remain in ‘a burned-out basement’, waiting for orders that will never come?

Whatever we decide about the meaning of “After the Goldrush”, it is certainly the song’s refrain that hit home: ‘Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s’. That this message continues to matter to Young is indicated by the fact that in more recent performances, he changes ‘1970s’ to ‘21^st century’.

[ed: other Neil Young songs analyzed include:

• “Are There Any More Real Cowboys?” (1985)
• “Mother Earth” (1990; 2016)
• “Be the Rain”, from Greendale (2003)
• “Green Is Blue” (2019)
• “Who’s Gonna Stand Up (For the Earth)?” (2014) ]
  

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We’ve been tracing the link between folk music and what I’m calling ‘Green Pop’, taking in the work of Guthrie, Seeger & co. If anyone could be said to have traced this journey within his career, it is surely Neil Young. I’ve known some people to dismiss his ecological work as fashionable and attitudinizing. Still, the evidence is that he has been entirely consistent in his resistance to agribusiness, to ‘big oil’, and to corporate influence.
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From Woody Guthrie to Neil Young, we can trace a serious and consistent commitment to the most important cause of our era. We are still learning from the songwriters discussed; whatever form “Green Pop” might take, the legacy of those folk roots will endure.

Full article @ "Songs of the Earth: Woody Guthrie to Neil Young | Pop Matters by Laurence Coupe.

 

More on eco, green Neil Young music @ The Inconvenient Truth of  Neil Young's Greendale.

"Be The Rain"
Neil Young and "Sun Green"
Greendale at Radio City Music Hall, New York City - March 18, 2004 

(note Neil's feet airborne!)

photo by thrasher

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