Woody Guthrie wrote a lot of songs which were never recorded; I'm not sure if he had actually written the music or not. In the 90s, his daughter approached Billy Bragg and asked him to put these lyrics to music. Billy Bragg and the band Wilco put out two albums, Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue II, of these Woody Guthrie songs.
Let's have Christ for President.
Let us have him for our King.
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
that you call the Nazarene.
The only way we can ever beat
these crooked politician men
Is to run the money changers out of the temple
And put the Carpenter in
O It's Jesus Christ for president
God above our king
With a job and a pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring
Every year we waste enough
to feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
and we shoot it down with wars
But with the Carpenter on the seat
away up in the capital town
The USA would be on the way prosperity bound!
Funny story about a Very Close Friend: this Friend was on a whale-watching tour with another Friend (also Very Close) who was back home for a visit, and on the boat they met this nice bloke from England and his girlfriend and had a nice chat. Fast forward to the weekend, when the VCF had bought tickets for her and Dr S (also visiting home) to see Billy Bragg in concert. As they were waiting in the line to go into the concert, they bumped into the English bloke's girlfriend. Friend asked girlfriend if her boyfriend was coming to the concert. Girlfriend looked at Friend quizically and did not answer. The Aha moment came when the English bloke walked onto the stage: Billy Bragg.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
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