I just remembered that I read in Bob Dylan’s Chronicles that supposedly Guthrie told Dylan that he’d written hundreds of songs that Dylan could have if he went over to his house and asked his wife for them – while Guthrie was in hospital, of course. Dylan went, but Mrs Guthrie was out, and he never went back – so clearly Guthrie didn’t mind his work being in the public domain.

Generally of course, children inherit their parents’ assets when the parents pass on, so unless Guthrie stated that he didn’t want his songs used – like Nabokov did in regard to his writing – then there’s no reason that Bragg and (Wil)co shouldn’t have taken up the offer.

What bothered me when I first heard Bragg and (Wil)co’s treatments though, was that none of those songs actually sound how Woody would have played them – and one of them (At My Window Sad and Lonely) had actually been recorded by Guthrie already.

Nevertheless, both versions of that song are good… and so is the other stuff (that I’ve heard)… except Hoodoo Voodoo.

You could go into all kinds of arguments about the value of art, though – and if the art’s good and the artist’s dead…

Woah, too many thoughts and ideas coming at once. I’m going to break off here before I start making arguments I don’t agree with just because they occur to me…

To summarise though; I’m not sure that recording some half-written lyrics by a legendary, yet to many people still largely unknown artist constitutes selling out…

… and Guthrie’s legacy deserves to reach as many people as possible – a cause that I’m sure can’t have been hurt by Bragg and Wilco’s efforts, cos the songs I’ve heard from the Mermaid Avenue records and all the Guthrie recordings I’ve got are really good.

I don’t know what Arlo’s opinion on the matter is – after all, he’s a folk singer in his own right and didn’t record any of those songs, and wasn’t on the documentary at all…

“What gives Wilco and Bragg the right to interpret these lost American classics?”

…Is that Guthrie’s daughter asked Billy Bragg to put music to Woody’s old lyrics, and Bragg asked Wilco to be involved.

You can see a documentary about it: “Man In The Sand”.