Woody Guthrie Was a Homegrown American Radical
Woody Guthrie Was a Homegrown American Radical
Woody Guthrie was born 111 years ago today. At the heart of his music and activism was a commitment to socialism, a condemnation of capitalism, and a belief that our society could help rather than hurt average people.
One of the saddest social commentaries in the US was how country music got co-opted by the right, and the beautiful and powerful songs of protest of the past turned into soulless ballads of today extolling "muh freedum".
Yes, the mechanisms of the ideology are to take and conquest all the social spaces resisting to capital practices and law, that's why, maybe, we need to create a new musical protest movement against the inequalities, the war and neoliberalism.
I've been a fan of "Trova" and it's many offshoots ever since I first heard a song by Silvio Rodriguez when I was starting to learn Spanish. I've been hooked every since and to this day it remains my favorite genre. I've been lucky enough to see some artists live (recently saw Inti-Illimani and Quilapayún in Medellin). I think it's high time for the same movement in English music. Unfortunately (maybe this is just me getting old) but it seems much of modern music is either bland and boring or else just plain anti-social, glorifying violence and misogyny.