Words and Music by Arlo Guthrie.
The chorus is based on an old American union song that I heard on live recordings of Pete Seeger. It was on the album by Arlo Guthrie that he recorded while he was still waiting to see whether the symptoms of Huntington's Chorea would appear. These days you could just do a genetic test - or not. In any case, he had a 50/50 chance of inheriting the disease that destroyed and then killed his father, Woody. So it was a "big issues" album and a "big issues" song. I was drawn to it at the time. Looking back on the other songs on "I've Got Eyes" (and the dozen or so others that didn't make the cut) I can see why it spoke to me and why I wanted to sing it too.
credits
from I've Got Eyes,
released September 1, 1980
Andrew Dutney: Vocal and guitar.
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