Vigilante Man
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| "Vigilante Man" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Woody Guthrie | |
| from the album Dust Bowl Ballads | |
| Released | 1940 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 2:50 |
| Label | Victor |
| Songwriter | Woody Guthrie |
"Vigilante Man" is a song by Woody Guthrie, recorded and released in 1940 as one of his Dust Bowl Ballads.[1]
The song is about the hired thugs ("vigilantes") who would violently chase away migrants to California trying to escape the Dust Bowl, a man-made ecological catastrophe in the American Great Plains during the 1930s. One verse refers to the murder of Preacher (Jim) Casy, a central figure in John Steinbecks' 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath.[2]
The tune was taken from "Sad and Lonesome Day", a song made popular by The Carter Family, which itself borrows from "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" by Blind Lemon Jefferson.[2]
