Front Porch Swordfish Sleepy Man a Mushroom

Woody Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter from Oklahoma. His musical legacy mainly consists of political/traditional/and children’s songs. For those of you who feel you’ve never heard of Guthrie, have no fear, you have most likely had a song of his humming through your head at some point in time. You can attribute Mr. Guthrie to being responsible for one of United States’ most famous folk songs of the 1940s, “This Land is Your Land”. Guthrie has famously influenced artists such as: Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer, and the obvious Billy Bragg and Wilco.

It seems slightly unjust, and also a little unnecessary to be the one defending the great Woody Guthrie’s lyrics as poetry. However, if there would be any one of his songs to find its way under potential scrutiny for poetic content, this song might just make the list. "HooDoo Voodoo" is a song written by Woody Guthrie and performed by Billy Bragg & Wilco. This song appears on disc 01 of a three part series, titled Mermaid Avenue. This album was lead into fruition at the request of the remaining Guthrie Estate. The Guthrie’s asked Billy Bragg to take on the responsibility of adopting Woody’s left behind lyrics and poems and make them his own. Bragg then asked Wilco for some assistance and together they turned Guthrie's stories into the intended foot stompin’, tear jerkin’, and politically lambasted tunes we hear on this album.

In relation to discussing the song and dissecting it for poetic meaninng, it can look a bit intimidating. After all, this piece is full of complete nonsensical terms and words that seem oddly enough, complex. It's almost as if the listener would have to speak an entirely different language just to get some comprehensible syntax out of the thing--let alone the writer’s intended tone and meaning! Look at the lyrics here for example, how do you even begin to dissect this? What is there to even try to make sense of?

Jinga jangler, tinga lingle, picture on a bricky wall
Hot and scamper, foamy lather, huggle me close
Hot breeze, old cheese, slicky slacky fishy tails
Brush my hair, kissle me some more

Ahh but don’t let the crazy words distract from this song's relatively simple message. It can be somewhat inferred by the childish rhyme scheme combined with the goofy phrases, that this song was written by Guthrie as a lullaby for his eight children. Because this song is intended for a youthful audience there is a humor aspect to the song w/both the lyrics and the rhythms, that when combined with Tweedy's whooping shrill-y vocals creates great dynamic.

While this song may be just simple child's rhyme, Guthrie does in fact have a pretty compelling story to share. This song can be seen as commentary on the world’s overabundance of nonsensical hub-ub, the unpredictability of a single day of life. Guthrie could be saying to his children that: while you might be exposed to some of the world’s (for lack of a better word) "ugly" things like, /Trash Sack/ or /Hot breeze, old cheese, slicky slakcy fish tails/ or effected by the less significant things in life /sidewalk, streetcar/ --know at the end of the day you can always have me here to love you.

Just look at the last few words of all of the stanzas:

--Grasshopper greensnake, hold my hand
--True blue, how true, kissle me now
--I'll be yours, you'll be mine
--True blue, how true, kissle me now
--Brush my hair, kissle me some more
--True blue, how true, kissle me now
--And kissle me some more
--Kissle me some more
--Kissle me some more

So yes, the words are ridiculous and random, but for a reason. The stomping thrill of the music matched against the lyrics’ childish rhyme patterns creates a quite interesting song as well.

If you like the song-watch this amazing live version that I just found, where Nels and Sansone duke it out w/ an epic guitar battle and Yo La Tengo (and some other special guests) join the band on stage.

See the full lyrics to Woody Guthrie's "Hoodoo Voodoo" HERE.