Freegal Songs for Earth Day

Earth Day: flowering crabapple  image credit: Ellen Mackey 2012

I’ve been searching the web for the best Earth Day songs and then searching Freegal to see what was available there.

Some of these songs celebrate nature; others lament what we’ve done to it.

Kansas                         Death of Mother Nature Suite

 John Prine                   Paradise

 Yardbirds                     Shapes of Things

 Johnny Cash                Don’t Go Near the Water

James Taylor               Traffic Jam

Woody Guthrie            This Land Is Your Land

Bruce Springsteen       This Land Is Your Land            

 Michael Jackson          Earth Song

Nitty Gritty Dirt           Fishin’ in the Dark

   Band

 John Mayer                 Waiting on the World to Change

 Dave Matthews           One Sweet World

   Band

 Kenny Loggins             Conviction of the Heart

                                    This Island Earth (album)

 John Denver                Calypso

                                    The Wind

                                    Annie’s Song

                                    Sunshine on My Shoulder

                                    Rocky Mountain High

 Walk Off the Earth      Little Boxes

 Pete Seeger                 God Bless the Grass

A Song for Earth Day 2013: “This Land is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie

Guanella Pass, Rocky Mountains, Colorado  Image credit: Ellen Mackey 2012

I saw Woody’s son Arlo in concert about 20 years ago.

He told us about how his dad had written a song about the Gulf stream waters and the redwood forests.

And he also told us about another verse,

“I saw a sign that said no trespassing

But on the other side

It didn’t say nothing.

That side was made for you and me.”

To see other “subversive” verses written by the champion of the common man, see this story by NPR.

Lots of Woody Guthrie’s work is available for free download on Freegal. So are versions of “This Land is Your Land” by Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.

Dust Bowl Geek: “Do Re Mi” by Woody Guthrie

Photo: Dept. of Agriculture

I listened to Nanci Griffith’s version of this song for the longest time before I realized it was a song about the Dust Bowl. Or more precisely, it was about the Okies who tried to find a better life in California, but found it was hard to make a go of it if they didn’t already have some money—that do-re-mi.

It’s a little tough to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t have any bootstraps.

Woody Guthrie’s version of the song is available for free download from Freegal.

Dust Bowl Geek: “Dust Bowl Blues” by Woody Guthrie

Photo: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

Ken Burns is premiering his Dust Bowl series tonight.

Today’s Denver Post has an interview with a Colorado woman who was a social worker in Prowers County duting the Dust Bowl. She says “You couldn’t leave your shoes out at night or you had to empty them in the morning.”

After I read Tim Egan’s book, The Worst Hard Times, I wrote a column for the Denver Post about the Dust Bowl and global warming. It’s reprinted here.

The Dust Bowl also left quite an impression on Woody Guthrie. He has a whole album Dust Bowl Ballads available for free download fromFreegal.

Dust Bowl Geek: “So Long It’s Been Good to Know Ya” by Woody Guthrie

Photo: Arthur Rothstein

Ken Burns is turning his camera towards the Dust Bowl, the biggest ecological disaster in the US—so far.

Woody Guthrie turned his music towards the Dust Bowl several years ago. According to Tim Egan, author of The Worst Hard Times, a young Woody Guthrie was sitting in a house waiting out a dust storm when he came up with his song “So Long It’s Been Good to Know Ya.”

Sometimes the dust storms were so bad, people couldn’t see each other across the living room. That’s a lot of dust inside. And they had to be careful not to touch each other. The static built up so much that static shocks were painful.

A whole album Dust Bowl Ballads is available for free download from Freegal.