One of the first songs Woody Guthrie wrote upon arriving in Portland in May of 1941, it’s the defining ballad in his Columbia River song cycle. He briefed himself on the area even before arriving by reading road maps and pamphlets representing a “cardboard history” of the Northwest. Once hired, Guthrie was provided reading materials including a book on the history of the local “Indian wars,” featuring a US Army general named Phil Sheridan. Over time, Guthrie edited out racially insensitive caricatures and politically incorrect references in the song that also commemorates Memaloose Island, a sacred Native American burial site. The use of “Good Night Irene” is an example of Guthrie’s ability to repurpose familiar melodies in entirely new ways. An anthem to public power and named the official Washington State folk song in 1987, it has become one of Guthrie’s most recognizable songs.
ORIGINAL TITLE: “Roll On Columbia, Roll On”
MELODY: “Good Night Irene”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); never recorded commercially by Guthrie
One of the three songs chosen for The Columbia soundtrack—an old ballad tracing back to 1894, first as “I’m a Highly Educated Man” and later as “I Was Born Ten Thousand Years Ago.” Guthrie adapted it several times, calling it “The Great Historical Bum” and then “Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done” in order to describe the mammoth Grand Coulee Dam project for the Bonneville Power Administration. Jeff Place of Smithsonian Folkways said, “This song provided a perfect frame for Guthrie to hang his political commentary on.”
MELODY: “Son of a Gambolier”
RECORDINGS: The 1942 soundtrack version recorded at Reeves Sound Studio in New York City is lost; a 1941 BPA acetate copy was recovered in the ’80s, and that version is available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); also recorded commercially for Moe Asch on April 19, 1944, with Cisco Houston
This song was written in 1940 at the apartment of Harold Ambellan and Elizabeth Higgins at 31 East Twenty-First Street in New York City’s Flatiron District and later submitted to the BPA. Considered a Columbia River song although it has no mention of dams, irrigation, or electricity, Woody clearly used it to meet his song-a-day requirement. One of the most recorded songs in Woody’s catalogue, it was a favorite during the folk revival of the early ’60s. The song title also became a phrase in the folk lexicon to separate folksingers who had lived it, like Woody, and the new urban folksingers who hadn’t.
MELODY: “This Train Is Bound for Glory” variant, but considered original
RECORDINGS: Not recorded by the BPA in any form; recorded commercially for Moe Asch on April 20, 1944, with Sonny Terry, and again in 1947; the later version appeared on Ballads from the Dust Bowl (Disc, 1947) and later on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
One of the most popular songs in the song cycle, it contains perhaps Woody’s most poetic line: “In the misty crystal glitter of that wild and wind ward spray.” The song not only suggests the passion Woody found in the landscape but also his awe at the sheer size and scope of the Columbia River projects and the dam itself. The tune is “Wabash Cannonball,” a particular favorite melody of Guthrie who used it in three Columbia River songs. Lonnie Donegan recorded “Grand Coulee Dam” in 1958, which peaked at number six on the UK charts, helping to ignite the folk revival there.
ORIGINAL TITLE: “Ballad of the Great Grand Coulee”
MELODY: “Wabash Cannonball”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); recorded commercially for Moe Asch with Cisco Houston in New York on April 19, 1944
Guthrie wrote his first “Jackhammer Blues” in 1940 while observing jackhammering outside his New York City hotel room, as he cites in the BPA manuscript. That song, which imitates the sound of a jackhammer and was never recorded (it appears in The Nearly Complete Collection of Woody Guthrie Songs), is a completely different song than this Columbia River version, which he later recorded commercially for Moe Asch and renamed “Jackhammer John.” This song is an ode to the hard work and rough-and-tumble lifestyle of the men who built the dams.
MELODY: “Brown’s Ferry Blues”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); recorded commercially for Moe Asch as “Jackhammer John” on May 19, 1944; not to be confused with an earlier “Jackhammer Blues,” written in 1940 but never recorded, or “The Ballad of Jackhammer John,” another Columbia River song never recorded
“Pastures of Plenty” is one of Guthrie’s most celebrated songs and one of the greatest folk songs ever written. It’s a ballad about migrant workers and the promise of turning unusable land into an agricultural bread basket in the Columbia Basin. A direct response and/or answer to his earlier Dust Bowl ballads, this song was recorded along with two other Columbia River songs for The Columbia film soundtrack in New York in 1942. The minor key Guthrie used in this setting added greatly to the stark nature of the scenes of drought-stricken Dust Bowlers. The later and more familiar version Guthrie recorded with Moe Asch in a major key features a slightly up-tempo rhythm and harmonica, which dramatically changes the tone of the song from a “brooding melody” capturing the melancholy of the migrant dilemma into a more positive tune about the hope of irrigation for Dust Bowl refugees. One of the most popular compositions in the Guthrie catalog, it remains as one of the most frequently recorded Columbia River songs and continues to stand as an enduring anthem for social change.
MELODY: “Pretty Polly”
RECORDINGS: The original “modal” minor-key soundtrack version, recorded in 1942 at Reeves Sound Studio in New York City for the film The Columbia, is lost; a copy was found in the mid-1980s on a duplication record pressed in Portland, Oregon, by Gordon Macnab in the early 1960s and is included on American Radical Patriot (Rounder, 2013); recorded commercially in a major key for Moe Asch in New York City in 1947, and appeared on Ballads from the Dust Bowl (Disc, 1947) and the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
This was one of the great discoveries of Bill Murlin’s research in the 1980s. While many of Guthrie’s 1941 river songs were recorded later in New York, this one was not. It’s one of his best “talking blues,” a form in which he was particularly skilled. Another direct response to his Dust Bowl ballads, this song is a blow-by-blow account of a Dust Bowl wheat farmer who moves to the Pacific Northwest before irrigation of the Columbia Basin, only to find the same conditions that he’d left behind. Guthrie adds to the lofty rhetoric of the New Deal with imagery of a brighter future and better opportunity from government intervention and a social democracy.
STYLE: Talking Blues
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); never recorded commercially
One of three songs recorded for The Columbia soundtrack, “Roll, Columbia, Roll” is featured in the opening scene of the film and plays like a love letter to the Pacific Northwest, with imagery that illuminates Guthrie’s appreciation for the area’s virgin landscape. It’s a mix of Manifest Destiny and an unfortunate prevailing attitude that nature was begging to be conquered. Like the other songs used in the film’s soundtrack, this recording surfaced on a vinyl copy pressed at Portland’s Clair Recordings in the ’60s, and it was discovered by Bill Murlin in the ’80s. The duplicating process resulted in very poor fidelity, similar to the minor-key version of “Pastures of Plenty,” which was on the same record copy.
MELODY: “Wabash Cannonball” variant but considered original
RECORDINGS: The original 1942 soundtrack version recorded at Reeves Sound Studio in New York City for the film The Columbia is lost; the copy found in the 1980s is available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
The Pacific Northwest has long represented the land of promise, and this song is another optimistic response to Guthrie’s earlier Dust Bowl ballads. It reinforces his belief in a brighter future without “bony” horses with ribs “you can count” and “cacklin’ ” chickens that lay “flint rock eggs.” It’s one of the better songs in the song cycle featuring a melody similar to that of “Hard Travelin’ ” in that it’s as near to original as Woody would get.
ORIGINAL TITLE: “I’m A Gonna Hit That Oregon Line This Comin’ Fall”
MELODY: Original
RECORDINGS: Not recorded by the BPA in any form; recorded commercially for Moe Asch in 1947 and appeared on This Land Is Your Land (Smithsonian Folkways, 1967) and the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
One of Guthrie’s most frequently recorded songs, particularly by protégé Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, it extolls the benefits of the dam projects while refuting criticism from eastern politicians, who “didn’t know them raw Chinooks” (salmon) and suggests that the project was a white elephant. During the BPA recording, Woody ad-libbed the line “electricity running all around, cheaper than rainwater,” which does not appear in the BPA manuscript. It was typical of Guthrie to not follow the script and to never perform a song the same way twice, like most folksingers.
ALTERNATE TITLE: “Talking Columbia”
STYLE: Talking Blues
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); recorded commercially for Moe Asch in 1947 and appeared on Ballads from the Dust Bowl (Disc, 1947)
This song highlights the Bonneville Dam, forty miles upriver from Portland, and features an unemployed worker from Louisiana looking for a job on the project. Guthrie displays good local knowledge of Columbia’s tributaries and relates the benefit of hydropower in the buildup to World War II.
The melody is from Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “One Dime Blues.” It’s one of Guthrie’s less original adaptations, suggesting the influence of Lead Belly on Guthrie’s song writing. Guthrie would record the song again in 1944 and call it “New York Town” with obvious adaptations.
ALTERNATE TITLE: “Portland Town”
MELODY: “One Dime Blues”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); recorded commercially for Moe Asch as “New York Town” on April 19, 1944
Another previously unheard acetate recording discovered during Bill Murlin’s research in the 1980s. Never recorded commercially, this song imagines a job seeker at the Grand Coulee Dam site introducing himself to a foreman—“Good morning, Mr. Captain!” Additional migrant imagery reinforces the idea that unemployed men and women really did want to work, but jobs were few. It’s verification that a good job, government intervention, and settling down can help a family grow on the clean mountain water of the Pacific Northwest. Woody’s patriotism is on display with the mention of Uncle Sam.
ALTERNATE TITLE: “Good Morning, Mr. Captain”
MELODY: “Muleskinner Blues”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987); never recorded commercially
This song was likely written prior to Woody’s BPA experience. Guthrie describes the destitute situation of the unemployed during the Great Depression and the plight of Dust Bowl refugees who were forced to migrate and “go ramblin’ ’round” looking for work. There’s mention of the New Deal agricultural strategy of the 1930s to pay farmers not to harvest in order to stabilize prices. The melody is another adaptation on Lead Belly’s “Good Night Irene.” Sometimes Guthrie repurposed bits and pieces of music unconsciously, as is historically the case for many folk and blues artists.
MELODY: “Good Night Irene”
RECORDINGS: Not recorded for the BPA in any form; recorded commercially for Moe Asch in 1947; appeared on Ballads from the Dust Bowl (Disc, 1947), although titled “Ramblin’ Blues” on the album; the same version also appears on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
This song describes the predicament of farmers who were not tied into the existing private power grid in the 1930s, before the hydroelectric projects on the Columbia River. While urban residents enjoyed a modern lifestyle that electricity provided, many rural people lived in the dark. A key component of the “planned promised land” was to bring convenience to every home, providing electricity and irrigation for common people, including rural residents. Between the BPA, which built the main power grid (and marketed the new energy), and the Rural Electrification Administration co-ops, which extended lines to new customers in the rural stretches of the Northwest, the promise was eventually fulfilled.
ORIGINAL TITLE: “Mile an’ a Half from th’ End of My Line”
MELODY: “Cumberland Gap”
RECORDINGS: Not recorded for the BPA in any form; recorded commercially for Moe Asch between 1946–47; the same version also appears on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
This is one of two songs not included in the recovered BPA manuscripts, which contained only twenty-four of Guthrie’s twenty-six Columbia River songs. The two songs—“Grand Coulee Powder Monkey” and “New Found Land”—are speculative, but since the time of Bill Murlin’s research, which produced a songbook (Roll On Columbia: The Columbia River Songs) and an album (Columbia River Collection), the two additional songs have never been refuted. The themes of land reclamation, electrification, and living happily in a land of plenty in “New Found Land” indicate that Guthrie wrote the song as part of the Columbia River song cycle. It was eventually recorded by Moe Asch in New York after Woody’s return from his second visit to the Northwest in 1947, and appears on Ballads from the Dust Bowl and another release from the 1960s called Bonneville Dam & Other Columbia River Songs (Verve Folkways, 1965), further strengthening its case as a Columbia River song. The simplistic tune is based on the “Buffalo Gals” melody.
MELODY: Variant of “Buffalo Gals” and the children’s song “This Old Man”
RECORDINGS: Not recorded for the BPA in any form; recorded commercially for Moe Asch in 1947; appeared on Ballads from the Dust Bowl (Disc, 1947); the same version also appears on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1987)
This is another testimonial song of how electricity can benefit the common man and individual farming families. Not to be confused with “End of My Line,” “Out Past the End of the Line” uses the melody of “Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad,” a song well associated with Guthrie.
MELODY: “Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
This is another discovery from Bill Murlin’s research in the 1980s when he solicited information from retired BPA employees regarding Woody Guthrie’s employment with the agency. This song, along with “Ramblin’ Blues” and “It Takes a Married Man to Sing a Worried Song,” was donated by former BPA employee Ralph Bennett who had two other similar “duo-disc” acetate copies that he made from originals of Guthrie BPA recordings during his time at the agency in the late 1940s. All original BPA recordings have been lost. This song hits on familiar themes of a “planned promised land,” building dams, hydropower, and the higher purpose of the Columbia River projects.
ALTERNATE TITLE: “Way Up in That Northwest”
MELODY: “On Top of Old Smokey”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1988); never recorded commercially
This is another song not related to the Columbia River projects but one that Guthrie submitted to the BPA. It’s an old song adapted from “Worried Man Blues” lyrically, but uses the melody of “Cannonball Blues.” It’s quite possibly inspired by Guthrie’s crumbling marriage at the time. He and his wife, Mary, separated as soon as the BPA appointment ended, and Woody hitchhiked to New York City while Mary stayed the summer in Portland. They divorced two years later in 1943.
MELODY: “Cannonball Blues”
RECORDINGS: 1941 BPA acetate copy recovered; available on the Columbia River Collection (Rounder, 1988)
One of the more obscure Columbia River songs, about a woman who wants to marry a longshoreman and anticipates the benefits of electricity and all that comes with a modern lifestyle. It doesn’t get much rosier than this in terms of “planned promised land” rhetoric and optimistic tone. It’s surprising that a demo was not made of this song at the BPA in 1941, as its message seems to hit the mark for what Kahn had in mind for his movie, The Columbia.
MELODY: Variant of “I Love Little Willie”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
This song is a colorful addition to the great legion of American folk heroes that includes John Henry, Paul Bunyan, and Driller Drake. Guthrie’s Jackhammer John is affirmation of the character Woody believed was inherent in working-class people. It’s the only Columbia River song that mentions the Tennessee Valley Authority, the forerunner to the Columbia River projects in terms of public works initiated by FDR’s New Deal, and is not to be confused with “Jackhammer John” or any “Jackhammer Blues” songs previously mentioned. The melody is from the traditional song “House of the Rising Sun” (as identified by Pete Seeger), but here Guthrie reimagined the actual House of the Rising Sun as a tavern card game in which the legends of labor compete with each other over who’s the hardest working. Other characters include the “Prettiest Girl in Red, White, and Blue” who serves as the dealer.
MELODY: “House of the Rising Sun”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
This is a song about the difficulties of dry farming written prior to Guthrie’s Portland experience but was submitted to fulfill his song-a-day requirement.
STYLE: “Talking Blues”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
Guthrie submitted five songs without music. In the mid-1980s, Pete Seeger identified the melodies he suspected Woody to have used or wrote new music to the lyrics. In this case Seeger wrote original music to a twenty-four-verse monumental story of what lumbering and mining might look like one hundred years in the future.
MELODY: Unknown; Pete Seeger wrote original musical notation in the 1980s
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
This is the story of a Dust Bowl migrant landing in Oregon. Pete Seeger identified the melody.
MELODY: “Crawdad Song”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
This is one of two songs not included in the BPA manuscripts. It was published in the 1963 songbook The Nearly Complete Collection of Woody Guthrie Songs, and it’s considered a Columbia River song because of its title and subject matter. A “powder monkey” used explosives to break rocks at the dam site.
MELODY: “Brown’s Ferry Blues”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
Guthrie name-drops dam workers, including friends and relatives, in this song about hard work on the dam projects. Pete Seeger identified the melody.
MELODY: “Widdicombe Fair”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
This is a train song with little relation to the Columbia River projects. Pete Seeger identified the tune as “Wabash Cannonball,” a favorite melody of Guthrie.
MELODY: “Wabash Cannonball”
RECORDINGS: Never recorded
