The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Kicking Hitler in the Panzers

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I have to take issue with Stacy's dissing of folk music. Just because most of its prominent musicians were liberals, even socialists, it doesn't take away from the quality of their work. When it comes to art, I think you have to set aside politics.

Besides, as leftist folk musicians go, Woody Guthrie knew how to stick it to the Nazis:

There was a man across the ocean, I guess you knew him well,
His name was Adolf Hitler, goddam his soul to hell;
We kicked him in the panzers and put him on the run,
And that was about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

View all comments (9) | Leave a comment

Captain America| 12.3.08 @ 12:59PM

edgy lyrics.

Robert Stacy McCain| 12.3.08 @ 1:30PM

Sort of a corollary to Godwin's Law: Anybody's OK if they hate Hitler.

Wlady| 12.3.08 @ 2:04PM

Phil: Did Woody stick it to the Nazis before, during, or after the Hitler-Stalin pact?

PJ Doland| 12.3.08 @ 3:08PM

Don't forget Janet Greene.

Cris| 12.3.08 @ 3:22PM

I've always wondered why liberals love folk music but despuise the culture it originates from.

Jeremiah| 12.3.08 @ 4:34PM

Mr McCain --

An interesting investigation would be into the penumbra of concepts surrounding Godwin's Law that 1) make Hitler such a common presence on conservative websites; 2) create the need constantly to remind people of the (not completely justifiable) working day claim that the Soviets were in the end just as bad the Nazis (and that therefore, somehow, in the logic we find will have been pursued, a person who voted for Obama is a Nazi); nervously defend against rarely assayed comparisons of militaristic late post-industrial states, with their interminable wars against unnameable enemies and their double talk and their torture chambers and propagandistic mass media and angry political rallies, to Nazis.

Now, as an "Obamaton" I eagerly await the establishment of civilian national police shock forces that will chuff off to camps deep in the mountains of Wyoming people different from me. I've been waiting for that great moment my whole life. But in general neither liberals nor conservatives think this way.

And God bless Woody Guthrie. Except for Hank Williams Sr (for the love of God, not his worthless grandson), Woody's the greatest.

Sean| 12.4.08 @ 10:51AM

Woody (and Phil Seeger and other fellow travellers) only stuck it to Hitler after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact came undone by Hitler's invasion of the USSR. In fact, prior to the invasion, Seeger (and I think Guthrie was involved as well) put out an album of Anti-War songs, in the hopes of keeping the US out of WWII.

In spite of that blind spot, I still like Woody's music.

Sean| 12.4.08 @ 10:56AM

Try finding that album now. It didn't sell a whole bunch when it was released, and it was pulled when it became an obvious embarassment.

When Guthrie heard the news about the invasion, he supposedly turned to Seeger and said, "Looks like we are going to have sing pro-war songs now"

WendyG | 12.4.08 @ 1:30PM

Christopher Guest produced a film that is a hilarious spoof of the folk music movement. Check it out when you get a chance. It's called A Mighty Wind.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/