Woody Guthrie in Will Geer's apartment. Guthrie made his first recordings—several hours of conversation and songs recorded by the folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress—as well as an album, "Dust Bowl Ballads," for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey. In February 1940 he wrote his most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land", as a response to what he felt was an overplaying of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" on the radio. Guthrie thought the lyrics were unrealistic and complacent. He adapted the melody from an old gospel song, "Oh My Loving Brother", which had been adapted by the country
Song to Woody 2017. The book weaves a tale connecting "Song to Woody", "1913 Massacre", the lives of Dylan and Guthrie, American labor history and more. A live version of "Song to Woody" was recorded at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, Calif., on 16 March 2000 and released on the "Things Have Changed" CD single in 2000. David Bowie refers to the song in his tribute to Dylan, "Song for Bob Dylan", which begins with the line, "Now hear this, Robert Zimmerman, I wrote this song for you" mirroring Dylan's own "Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song." The song