Saturday, February 6, 2010

A Song For A Tea Party : I Ain't Got No Home

The Tea Party Convention is full swing today. Most of them think they are something new. Some know otherwise. Some of the money grubbers try to make them think they are the New Revolution of 1776. Old Ben, and Tom and George would gag at that.
Seems that you can't get into the Convention unless you pay them $550. Shit, Woody Guthrie would have sat outside their gig and sang for free.

What goes around comes around. Take a look at this song from 1931.
Here is Billy Bragg singing it for you.

Don't it sound current?


I AIN'T GOT NO HOME

I ain't got no home, I'm just a-roamin' 'round,
Just a wandrin' worker, I go from town to town.
And the police make it hard wherever I may go
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road,
A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod;
Rich man took my home and drove me from my door
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Was a-farmin' on the shares, and always I was poor;
My crops I lay into the banker's store.
My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor,
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

I mined in your mines and I gathered in your corn
I been working, mister, since the day I was born
Now I worry all the time like I never did before
'Cause I ain't got no home in this world anymore

Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see
This world is such a great and a funny place to be;
Oh, the gamblin' man is rich an' the workin' man is poor,
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

--WG

"I Ain't Got No Home" is a traditional Woody Guthrie song. The earliest recording came in 1931 by the Carter Family, as a gospel song called "Can't Feel At Home." It was also recorded a few times as "This World Is Not My Home," before Woody Guthrie adapted his version as "I Ain't Got No Home." As Guthrie wrote about it, "this old song to start out with was a religious piece...but I seen there was another side to the picture. Reason why you can't feel at home in this world anymore is mostly because you ain't got no home to feel at."
(from the liner notes to Hard Travelin')

Just a note to my Tea Party friends, Woody was a Socialist (at least, as he said, he was in the Red all of his life).

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