This is too funny...
Trump tried to create the "National Garden of American Heroes" to ... well ... it was a stupid idea, as usual, so not really worth mentioning the WHY of it...
One of the "Heroes" he named was Woody Guthrie, the American folk songwriter famous for his protest songs, and for being the father of Arlo Guthrie, of the epochal Thanksgiving song "Alice's Restaurant".
Thing is, Woody Guthrie fought against all kinds of shitheads and assholes with his songs, including Donald Trump's dad who was a well-known racist and shitweasel, by writing "Old Man Trump" (among other anti-Fred Trump songs):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_Trump
I like to envision Radar O'Reilly from the TV show MASH, when he would slip in extra papers for the Colonel to sign... the Colonel would rush through signing all the papers, and Radar would slip in one that was a requisition for something special.
I think someone pulled that on Trump. On the last day in office.
Pure poetry.
When JLo was started singing This Land is Your Land yesterday, I said to my wife, "No way she sings the commie verse; it always gets left out." And she didn't. We love to forget that that song isn't really about how pretty America is. It's about how so much of America's beauty is obscured by private land holdings that bar the rest of us from a full experience.
Guthrie and Seeger are huge heroes of mine, and absolute dyed-in-the-wool pinko commies. It's really a testament to their persistance and skill as songwriters that they became as popular as they did despite the "Red Scare" and being blacklisted. Always loved bringing in songs by them to do at my last school's "All School Sing" - went over very well at the little anarchist school in the woods. If anyone's interested, here's a playlist of leftie jams I put together a year so ago, some good covers of Seeger/Guthrie songs throughout.
Love that Kottke is on your list. When he starting collaborating with Mike Gordon it made my life better. That's the only way I can say it. A local Guthrie favorite up here in MI is one he wrote about the massacre of unionists miners (and minors!) in Calumet. What a fantastic soul.
My grandmother ralated that my great grandmother was there with her mom and aunts. Her aunt told them to stay at their tables, which they did. She also said that the person that yelled "fire" did so more than once. They yelled it, then ran, than returned and yelled it again, and that's when everyone panicked.
Leo Kottke is a gem. A grumpy motherfucker to the core, who can play the strings off any guitar. 6 and 12-string guitar is one of the most brilliant guitar albums ever made. And he recorded in an empty warehouse, with no heating, in the winter, in someplace like Minneapolis. He had to take breaks all the time to warm up his hands. Recorded it in 2 days, I think? I'm also a fan of his album "My Father's Face. I know a lot of people don't like it when he sings (he says his voice is, "... like goose farts on a foggy morning...") but I love it. Especially the free verse stuff like Jack Gets Up. He's a midwest Bukowski to me.
I had no idea Woody wrote about Fred Trump. Amazing. Thanks for the info. Pure poetry indeed.