Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Collin Lowva.
Speaker 2: And I'm Alice Irasari. Spotlight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 3: I hate a song that makes you think that you're
Speaker 3: not any good. I hate a song that makes you
Speaker 3: think that you are just born to lose. No good
Speaker 3: to nobody, no good for nothing because you are either
Speaker 3: too old or too young, or too fat or too thin,
Speaker 3: or too bad looking, or to this or to that.
Speaker 3: Songs that make fun of you on account of your
Speaker 3: bad luck or hard travels. I will fight those kind
Speaker 3: of songs to my very last breath. I will fight
Speaker 3: them to a last drop of blood.
Speaker 1: Woody Guthrie was a songwriter from the United States. He
Speaker 1: spoke these words on a radio program in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 1: Guthrie's method for making music was special. He wrote about
Speaker 1: what he experienced in his life. The words in his
Speaker 1: songs were like the dust of the road, but the
Speaker 1: simple words and sounds displayed a truth that Woody Guthrie
Speaker 1: was as real as they came. This kind of simple
Speaker 1: honesty made Guthrie's songs special. It changed American folk music forever.
Speaker 1: Today's spotlight is on Woody Guthrie.
Speaker 2: Woody Guthrie was born into dust. In the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: the world faced the Great Depression. This terrible economic downturn
Speaker 2: hit the United States. Hard rich men threw themselves from
Speaker 2: buildings because they were depressed. Over All, they had lost.
Speaker 2: But the situation was worse in the Great Plains. Years
Speaker 2: of too much farming had left the ground too worn
Speaker 2: out to grow good crops. Three years of little rain
Speaker 2: left thousands of kilometers of empty land. Huge windstorms blew
Speaker 2: through these empty fields. These were the perfect elements for
Speaker 2: human tragedy. They were the elements for the dust bowl.
Speaker 1: The dust bowl transformed the Great Plains. Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada,
Speaker 1: New Mexico, and Colorado became unlivable. The winds carried thousands
Speaker 1: of kilograms of soil, blowing great clouds of black dust
Speaker 1: into the air. These storms, called black blizzards, could bury
Speaker 1: people in their homes. Even breathing the air was dangerous.
Speaker 1: Avis D. Carlson was a writer for the New Republic newspaper.
Speaker 1: He compared these storms to bad dreams.
Speaker 4: The bad dream is deepest during the storms, But on
Speaker 4: the few bright days and the usual gray day, we
Speaker 4: cannot forget it. We live with the dust, eat it,
Speaker 4: sleep with it. We watch it take our things and
Speaker 4: our hope of things. It is becoming real. The hope
Speaker 4: of spring turns into a story of the past. The
Speaker 4: bad dream is becoming life.
Speaker 2: Like thousands of others from Oklahoma, the dust bowl pushed
Speaker 2: Guthrie from his home. With little money and little hope,
Speaker 2: he wandered the United States. He left his children and
Speaker 2: wife behind. He earned his meals by playing music and
Speaker 2: painting signs. Sometimes he found work on farms, but most
Speaker 2: nights when he went to bed, his stomach was empty.
Speaker 2: All he had were the people he traveled with and
Speaker 2: his guitar, his favorite instrument.
Speaker 1: Guthrie's travels made him distrustful of people with wealth. By
Speaker 1: the time he reached California, he was already writing songs
Speaker 1: that praised working people, such as his song about the
Speaker 1: farmer labor Train. His experiences in California made this feeling stronger.
Speaker 1: There he joined thousands of other people fleeing from the
Speaker 1: dust bowl called Oaky's. The same Oaks came because so
Speaker 1: many of them had left their farms in Oklahoma. The
Speaker 1: Oakes thought that they would find jobs in California, but
Speaker 1: people there did not have much work either. Many Californians
Speaker 1: distrusted these new travelers. They did not give the Oakey's jobs.
Speaker 1: The Oakes were made to feel less than human.
Speaker 2: Guthrie's most famous songs speak to these experiences. This Land
Speaker 2: Is Your Land is his best known song. Most of
Speaker 2: the song describes the beauty of the United States of America.
Speaker 2: The sands of Guthrie's America shine brightly, its forests stand
Speaker 2: tall and mighty. But after each part or verse of
Speaker 2: his song, Guthrie returns to the same idea that the
Speaker 2: United States belongs to all of its people. He sang, this.
Speaker 3: Land is your land, and this land is my land.
Speaker 3: From California to the New York Island, from the Redwood
Speaker 3: Forest to the Gulf stream Waters, this land was made for.
Speaker 1: You and me. Even though Guthrie had difficult experiences, he
Speaker 1: loved his country. He enjoyed its beauty, but he also
Speaker 1: saw where it was not perfect and where it could improve.
Speaker 1: He criticized and protested through songs and humor. But every
Speaker 1: song he wrote, every sound he played, came from a
Speaker 1: deep love of the place he called home.
Speaker 2: Guthrie's songs soon made him famous among the Oakies, and
Speaker 2: he met people interested in recording his songs. He ran
Speaker 2: a radio program in California for several years. He played
Speaker 2: many of his new songs on the program.
Speaker 1: Guthrie's words often got him in trouble. Guthrie was not
Speaker 1: a communist, supporting that kind of government system, but his
Speaker 1: songs expressed sympathy for the commonist, someone fighting for the
Speaker 1: common ordinary people and seeking to help with their problems.
Speaker 1: These ideas were common among workers during the dust Bowl,
Speaker 1: but as time passed, people in the United States became
Speaker 1: suspicious of Guthrie's political views. Guthrie lost his job at
Speaker 1: the radio station in nineteen thirty nine. He continued writing
Speaker 1: and singing, but it became more difficult to find people
Speaker 1: to listen to his music.
Speaker 2: Guthrie also seemed to be unable to stay in place
Speaker 2: for long. He had grown up traveling the road was
Speaker 2: part of him. He spent years moving from one side
Speaker 2: of the country to another. One year he was writing
Speaker 2: songs in the Pacific Northwest. Another year he was in
Speaker 2: New York City playing with a group called the Almanac singers.
Speaker 2: He was married and divorced several times.
Speaker 1: Guthrie grew successful even though he moved so much, but
Speaker 1: he did not have the same kind of success as
Speaker 1: modern recording artists would have. He traveled instead of collecting wealth.
Speaker 1: Experiences seemed more important to him than building a life
Speaker 1: in one place. He did not plan for old age.
Speaker 2: Old age came to Woody Guthrie sooner than most. He
Speaker 2: was born with Huntington's disease. This disorder of the brain
Speaker 2: attacked his memory and intelligence. He grew difficult to live
Speaker 2: with and difficult to care for. By nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: the disease had robbed him of his speech. He died
Speaker 2: two years later, unable to write or sing a word.
Speaker 1: But others like Guthrie would soon take up his voice.
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan is a famous musician. Dylan won the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen Nobel Prize in Literature with the words he wrote
Speaker 1: for his songs, But when he was younger, Woody Guthrie
Speaker 1: was his favorite artist. Musicians like Johnny Cash, Bob Seger,
Speaker 1: and Bruce Springsteen all credit Guthrie among their early musical influences.
Speaker 1: His style of honest speaking continues to shape American folk
Speaker 1: music today.
Speaker 2: Woody Guthrie was an important folk artist. What does folk
Speaker 2: music mean to you? What does it sound like for you?
Speaker 2: Who are the folk singers in your community? You can
Speaker 2: leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight
Speaker 2: English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok,
Speaker 2: and x. You can also get our programs delivered directly
Speaker 2: to your Android or Apple device through our free official
Speaker 2: Spotlight English app.
Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
Speaker 1: was Michyo Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the u United States. All quotes were
Speaker 1: adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program
Speaker 1: is called This Land Is Your Land, The Woody Guthrie Story.
Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye,