Lyric Review: Woody Guthrie's "Pastures of Plenty"

Last week's lyric review concerned a song with few end rhymes, U2's "One Tree Hill." This week we go in the opposite direction with a song loaded with end rhymes, Woody Guthrie's "Pastures of Plenty." Artists as diverse as Alison Krauss and Union Station, Harry Belafonte, Bruce Hornsby, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Peter, Paul and Mary have recorded Guthrie's passionate tail of migrant workers from the depression era. Here are the lyrics:

PASTURES OF PLENTY by Woody Guthrie

It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road
Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled
And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold

I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

California, Arizona, I harvest your crops
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

Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in the Union us migrants have been
We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win

It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if need be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free

Copyright Ludlow Music, Inc.

Guthrie himself is often regarded as the father (or grandfather, depending on where one fits Bob Dylan) of modern American folk music. Indeed, when Dylan was starting out in the early 60s, he'd often visit his hero Guthrie during Guthrie's last, hospital ridden years before he succumbed to the disease that had killed his mother.
Dylan's work, along with many since him, has carried with it echoes of Guthrie's poetry. Look at the second couplet of the second verse above:

On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

Dylan's song "Song To Woody" revisited the lines line this:

Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the men.

This kind of homage, and the studiosness it takes to pull it off, is lacking in our generation. We don't learn from those who have gone before us. We don't learn from each other. We are islands to ourselves, and it shows.

"Pastures of Plenty" contains five verses with no chorus. The rhyme scheme is AABB except for the first verse, which uses the same end rhyme for all four lines. Guthrie also uses alliteration (repitition of beginning consonants in different words) partial consonance (repitition of end consonants in different words) and repetend (the repitition of words or phrases), all to great effect. As an exercise, you could print the lyrics out and circle all the examples of alliteration, consonance, and repetend you can find. This is the kind of exercise that is often performed in poetry classes and workshops.

Guthrie loved lyrics. He wasn't much of a musical master -- most of his songs borrowed the melody of earlier folk standards, occasionally at different speeds or in different time signatures. But he knew how to tell a story through the medium of music. Strong nouns and verbs, the occasional adjective -- and almost never an adverb -- this is what makes a poem, song, or story zing.

The song title is an excellent use of irony. Guthrie was a comman man who sang about the plight of the common man. "Pastures of Plenty" meant something different for them. To the rich, to the solid middle class, it means bounty, easy living, and never opening a cupboard that turns out to be bare.
To the characters in Guthrie's works, it means the opportunity for work. Hear it in:

Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine

and:

It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if need be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free.

Why must they always be free? Because he could then have a way to provide for himself. Freedom is tied up in "right to work" and easy immigration laws. It is not begging for the crumbs from a table, it is going up to the master of the table and saying "Give me a wage and I will set this table for you."
It is a way of life that many of us don't understand, but through evocative writing like Woody Guthrie's, we catch a glimpse.