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Songs For Woody: Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue

RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 7 July 1998

WOODY GUTHRIE bequeathed us his jumble. Willing in life to play straight man for many right causes, in death he left a tangle of words and roles. He practiced reckless disregard, saving up lyrics and then forgetting about them. He wrote the song eventually titled 'This Land Is Your Land' and then stuck it away for years; he never got around to writing music for 'Deportee', which became another one of his most famous compositions. He was a pack rat saving for some other day, and it wasn't particularly important to him if that day ever came.

Total word count of piece: 1421

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