"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.
...
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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Americana: As Told by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young

"This Land Is Your Land" (Woody Guthrie cover)
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band w/
Arcade Fire, Tom Morello, Alejandro Escovedo, and more.
The Moody Theater, Austin, TX - SXSW 2012 - March 15, 2012

Quite a bit of commentary on the upcoming album Americana by Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Already. And release not set until June.

So could folks be most excited about the first full album recording by Neil Young & Crazy Horse in about 10 years?

Of course not.

Which reminds us of 2006 when Bruce Springsteen released We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. On The Seeger Sessions, Springsteen covers songs by "Americana folk music" icon Pete Seeger.

Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

Here's how blog critic and author of the upcoming Neil Young FAQ: Everything Left to Know About the Iconic and Mercurial Rocker Glen Boyd put it at the time (The Seeger Sessions? Say It Aint So Bruce - Blogcritics Music):

So The Seeger Sessions is finally out.

The album that has been front and center in the hearts and minds of Bruce Springsteen fans ever since it was first announced last February was finally released Tuesday. The debate among both fans and critics about this record has been an often intense one in the days between that announcement and yesterday's release.

Boyd went on to site a few grumblings such as not putting the E St. Band to its best use and calling it "something of a vanity project for Bruce... like the sort of thing Elvis Costello did with the Brodsky Quartet."

Since the time of the earliest rumblings of a new album of Bruce "Americana folk music" covers in 2006, critic Boyd and most of the Bruce fan naysayers quickly came around on the The Seeger Sessions and recognized the boldness and exuberant recklessness of Bruce's interpretations of Pete Seeger's rebel folk.

And so here we are.

In the video above with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (and many, many others) covering Woody Guthrie's Americana classic "This Land Is Your Land" at SXSW 2012 Festival, we see a modern day American icon interpret what really was -- and still is -- a radical protest song. Guthrie saw an America in the crisis of the 1930's Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, where the wealthy ruling elite could care less about the millions of starving, suffering poor folks.


Americana by Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Now along comes the soon to be released album by Neil Young & Crazy Horse of "Americana folk music" titled -- appropriately enough -- Americana.

Like Bruce above, Neil Young's newest album will also cover Woody Guthrie's Americana classic "This Land Is Your Land" . From the liner notes for Americana by Neil Young & Crazy Horse:

This Land Is Your Land

This folk song was written by Woody Guthrie in the 1940s to a pre-existing melody as a response to “God Bless America” which Guthrie was tired of hearing. The lyrics Guthrie sang varied over time, but the lyrics sung in the Americana version were in the original manuscript of the song.

As noted in the liner notes, "This Land Is Your Land" was written in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" -- but not necessarily just because he was "tired of hearing" -- but more due to the hypocrisy of the ruling wealthy elites.

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing." [In another version, the sign reads "Private Property"]
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!
That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

So far, so good, right? What could go wrong?

Well, it would seem in the eyes and ears of some Neil Young fans, what Neil is about to embark on is a big misguided desecration -- sort of like Bruce Springsteen with Seeger Sessions.

Here's how some of the fan commentary on the upcoming album Americana is going. Questions of authenticity, legitimacy, historical accuracy, political tone-deafness and unspoken social ramifications, and so on.

All subjects which should be up for debate.

And maybe that's why Bruce covered Pete and Neil is covering many great, classic "Americana folk music" songs? To spark a big, giant debate on where Americana is coming from and going? What could be more healthy and apropos?

So -- in conclusion -- just as critic Glen Boyd went out on a limb and pre-judged Springsteen's Seeger Sessions and turned out to be happily mistaken, we'll go out out on a limb and pre-judge Neil Young's Americana. Might Americana be the album Neil wished he released in 2006 instead of Living With War?

We can only imagine Neil and The Horse stompin' thru Woody's Americana classic "This Land Is Your Land" and totally -- yet respectfully -- shreddin' it.

We await the June 5 release... eagerly.

In the meantime, a happy 100th birthday to Oklahoma's favorite son, Woody!


Woody Guthrie - "This Land Is Your Land"

ps - What Would Woody Do? (Hint: Occupy the Music)

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