Grand Coulee Dam (song) Grand Coulee Dam (song) "Grand Coulee Dam" is an American folk song recorded in 1941 by Woody Guthrie. He wrote it during a brief period when he was commissioned by the Bonneville Power Administration to write songs as part of a documentary film project about the dam and related projects. The song was part of the "Columbia River Ballads", a set of 26 songs written by Guthrie as part of a commission by the BPA, the federal agency created to sell and distribute power from the river's federal hydroelectric facilities, in particular the Bonneville Dam and Grand Coulee Dam. On
Coulee Coulee </div> Coulee, or coulée ( or ) is a term applied rather loosely to different landforms, all of which refer to a kind of valley or drainage zone. The word "coulee" comes from the Canadian French "coulée", from the French word "couler" meaning "to flow". The term is often used interchangeably in the Great Plains for any number of water features, from ponds to creeks. In southern Louisiana the word "coulée" (also spelled "coolie") originally meant a gully or ravine usually dry or intermittent but becoming sizable during rainy weather. As stream channels were dredged or canalized, the term