Pastures of Plenty

DESCRIPTION: "It's a mighty hard road that my poor hands has hoed." The singer describes the hard work in the fields and the life of the (migrant) field worker. The singer promises to fight if need be, "'Cause my Pastures of Plenty must always be free."
AUTHOR: Woody Guthrie
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (date of composition)
KEYWORDS: work farming travel migrant freedom nonballad derivative
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, pp. 293-294, "Pastures of Plenty" (1 text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, p. 502, "Pastures of Plenty" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, PASTPLEN
ADDITIONAL: Greg Vandy with Daniel Person, _26 Songs in 30 Days: Woody Guthrie's Columbia River Songs and the Planned Promised Land in the Pacific Northwest_, Sasquatch Books, 2016, p. 62 (copy of one of Woody's own typed texts)
Woody Guthrie, __Roll On Columbia: The Columbia River Collection_, collected and edited by Bill Murlin, Sing Out Publications, 1991, pp. 22-23, "Pastures of Plenty" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #16377
RECORDINGS:
Woody Guthrie, "Pastures of Plenty" (on AmHist2)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Pretty Polly (II)" (tune)
NOTES [40 words]: This is one of Woody's Columbia River ballads, from 1941, but most people aren't aware of this because it is not at all specific to the Columbia or the Bonneville Power Administration. Note however the reference to the Grand Coulee Dam. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: Grnw293

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography