Do Re Mi

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Do Re Mi
A Song by Woody Guthrie
Lots of folks back East they say
Leaving home every day
Beating the hot old dusty way to the California line
Cross the desert sands they roll
Getting out of the old dust bowl
Think they're going to a sugar bowl
But here's what they find
Now police at the port of entry say
You're number fourteen thousand for today
Chorus
Oh, if you ain't got the do re mi, folks
You ain't got the do re mi
Why you better get back to beautiful Texas
Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee
California is a garden of Eden
A paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not
You won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi
You want to buy a house or a farm
That can't do nobody harm
Or take your vacation by the mountain or sea
Don't swap your old cow for a car
You'd better stay right where you are
Better take this little tip from me
Cause I look through the want ads every day
And the headlines in the papers always say

Notes
From The Digital Tradition
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow. Woody Guthrie

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