WOODY!

NO! Not that guy!!! Although that would make for a good Woody Guthrie music video, no? Actually no....

Let me start off by saying that this is exactly the type of music I picture Walt listening to as he is loafing away in the some green pasture.

Music and poetry are very similar.  Lyrics to music are just poems put to a tune.  I remember reading an interview, and I can't what artist said it, but they said they liked to write poetry and decided to give a shot at writing lyrics for a band.  So really they are one in the same.

If you look at Woody's lyrics, without listening to the song it could be considered free verse just like Walt!  But I read through the two songs and I was a little bored.  The lyrics are very simple by themselves.  Put it to a tune though, and the words definitely pop.  Take the line "and your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold" for example, the mix of the harmonica and banjo allow those words to have more of a meaning that just hot and cold weather.  Also's Woody's voice gives the line a certain melody that emphasizes certain words and syllables that also gives more meaning.  In this case, probably just for the melody and tune, he elongates the word cold as the tune goes along.  This emphasizes the hardship the individual went through to travel.

"This Land is Your Land" reminds me of the Preface to LEAVES OF GRASS.  As an artist, Woody could be considered a poet and in the Preface, Walt says, "The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race of races.  Of them a bard is to be commensurate with a people.  To him the other continents arrive as contributions...he gives them reception for their sake and his own sake.  His spirit responds to his country's spirit...he incarnates its geography and natural life and rivers and lakes."  He might be talking about the poets, but I as I've said, poets and singers/lyricists are one in the same.

Ok just a little note...

I waaaaaaas going to do the Coen bros post and The Big Lebowski is definitely a favorite, but for some reason I went for Woody.  Sooooooo, I end my post with some wise words from THE DUDE!