Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads Quotes

“America was an orchard of peachy dreams behind a gauzed fence and a sign that said ‘No Tresspassing’. This land was his land as much as the next man’s. Like the folk songs he sang, it belonged to everyone, so it belonged to no one. The ungodly sin was the fence, not the crossing of it.”
― Nick Hayes, Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads

“There was an alchemy in this noise and exultation: spellbound in the sorcery of these songs, I became we, me became us. For there was an empowerment in this empathy, a catharsis in this energy, as if each man gathered the bare bones of his personal circumstances and was banging a rhythm out of them, a rhythm that sang with the ferocious energy of survival, a heartbeat that said they weren’t beat. Because singing was breathing and dancing was moving, and breathing and moving were for the quick and not the dead. And suddenly, the air was full of wet — damp with breath and sweat. Face were dripping, arms were flailing, kids were kissing, Pas were cussing, and Mas were laughing, and all were swaying in a way that had something to do with the homebrew, something to do with the music, with the way things are, with the way they should be, and the way they have always been.”
― Nick Hayes, Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Ballads