Christ for President

There are hundreds of Woody Guthrie “songs” — words without written music — in the Guthrie Archives, never seen, never heard, probably never sung, and certainly never recorded since their writing

In 1995, Nora Guthrie asked Billy Bragg and Wilco to take a look.  The result was the Mermaid Avenue albums.

Here is a Woody different from the workerist stereotype, who was religious (in his own way), comical, fantastical (flying saucers!), and in love with Ingrid Bergman (well, nothing very remarkable there).

Here’s one that comes to mind as we suffer through the season.

Christ for President

Let’s have Christ our President
Let us have him for our king
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
That they call the Nazarene

The only way
We could ever beat
These crooked politician men

Is to cast the moneychangers
Out of the temple
Put the Carpenter in

Oh it’s Jesus Christ our President
God above our king
With a job and pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars

But with the Carpenter
On the seat
Way up in the capitol town

The USA
Be on the way
Prosperity bound

from Mermaid Avenue