John Mellencamp’s Poetic Tribute to Woody GuthrieIn this week’s Arts & Leisure section, Larry Rohter writes about “Woody at 100,” a new collection released on Tuesday. The 3-CD set commemorates the centennial of Woody Guthrie’s birth on July 14.
John Mellencamp, a fan of Guthrie’s since his childhood in Indiana, has recorded Guthrie compositions like “Do Re Mi” and “Johnny Hart.” For the 100th anniversary of Guthrie’s birth Mr. Mellencamp has written this poem as a tribute:
You know there’s a certain kind of individual
Who always takes the rough side
The side that nobody else wants to take
Most folks are content to take the path of least resistance
To sit on the sidelines and watch the world go by
And yell obscenities from the dark
Not this bird
He has no desire to take the easy way out
He sees the world through a long lens
And through that lens he knows
How out of kilter this place really is
He has no desire for riches
For ass-kissing, for fitting in
Or being at the right place at the right time
No, for him it’s just the opposite
Quite the contrary
It seems like he’s always in the wrong place
At the wrong time
He knows the world is full of hypocrisy
And is hyper aware of his own
This bird is not afraid to fight
To love
To get so far out there in the bones
That it would hurt our feet just to walk down his highway
But this bird soars wings on
This bird keeps us on guard
And honest
As the rest of us can be
This bird don’t mind volunteering
Is not afraid to lose
Is too moral to be a whore
And too honest to steal
But cares enough to write it all down in song ….
This bird is Woody Guthrie
And he dares you to fill his footprint
And so do I
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/john-mellencamps-poetic-tribute-to-woody-guthrie/
