coldhearted scientist وداد

Every once in a while it is time to sing Woody Guthrie’s Do Re Mi. Now singing is John Mellencamp as he sang and commented on this song in the 1988 documentary on Leadbelly and Guthrie, A Vision Shared. We are watching on YouTube, because the clip does not want to be embedded here. The video, however, is truly great.

I sing Do Re Mi to rebel against certain Easterners I have to deal with at work. They are so limited and limiting, so self-satisfied and self-serving, that I feel like coming in soon with a purple Mohawk. But in its original context the do re mi isn’t the “spirit” I ascribe to it, it is money. These lines could not be clearer: ‘Cause I look through the want ads every day / But the headlines on the papers always say: / If you ain’t got the do re mi, boys […]. You need money to make it out of the cotton fields of home, and more money still to make it out of the western orchards. This song was written about 1937, and recorded in 1940 as part of Dust Bowl Ballads.

Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin’ home every day,
Beatin’ the hot old dusty way to the California line.
‘Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin’ out of that old dust bowl,
They think they’re goin’ to a sugar bowl, but here’s what they find —
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
“You’re number fourteen thousand for today.”

Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go 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 you a home or a farm, that can’t deal nobody harm,
Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea.
Don’t swap your old cow for a car, you better stay right where you are,
Better take this little tip from me.
‘Cause I look through the want ads every day
But the headlines on the papers always say:

If you ain’t got the do re mi, boys, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go 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.

Axé.