Illa ber til at hugsa um Woody Guthrie uttan at nevna John Steinbeck (1902-1968), serliga skaldsøguna Grapes of Wrath (1939), ið er ein samtíðarsøga um húskið Joad, sum eru niðurundirkomin bóndafólk úr Oklahoma, ið hava sæð so vakrar lýsingar úr lovaða landinum California, at tey rýma hagar. Her liva tey eina tíð av náði frá harðrendum góðseigarum, men náðin rennir undan og tey gerast arbeiðsleys og heimleys on the road. Hetta er kjarnin í Dustbowl Ballads hjá Guthrie, sum eisini eru um Tom Joad, tikin úr søguni hjá Steinbeck.
California, Arizona, I harvest your cropsArbeiðarastættin kennir seg aftur í fólkasangunum hjá Woody Guthrie. Aftast í bókini In the Country of Country (1997) stendur ein mynd við undirtekstinum: "A woman says goodbye to her farm: They offered the music of home for people who no longer had a home". Beinrakið og rakar beint í hjartakulluna á teimum, ið mest lurta eftir sangum Guthries.
Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine
“In Mississippi they stopped to earn a little money for food, and they met a young couple who showed them how to hop freight trains, a mode of transportation they took the rest of the way to California. Riding railroad boxcars during the Depression was quite dangerous, especially with small children. Sympathetic railroad workers, touched by the family’s plight, helped them along the way and hid them from the railroad bulls; the Salvation Army provided them with food.”
Besti sangur hjá Woody Guthrie er eftir mínum tykki hann, um meksikansku arbeiðsfólkini, sum í 1948 lata lív í flogvanlukku á júst hesum leiðum, Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?