This song is about migrants who left Texas, Okalahoma, Kansas, Georgia, and Tennessee during the Dust Bowl for California, hoping to find work and land. The singer is warning the migrants that California isn't as great as they say. There are already too many migrants there and "if you ain't got the do re mi" then you better go back home because you are just going to be worse off in California.
In this song Guthrie is writing about things as they happen with a current perspective. He even went through it himself and now is giving advice to the migrants. It is really clever how he used "do re mi" to mean dough or money. It took me awhile to figure out what it meant though.
At first I thought this song wasn't too great, but after listening to it multiple times, I have started to sing along. This song reminds me of "Paddy's Lament" because of the singer warning the others so they won't have to go through the troubles he's had. I also like Ani DiFranco's rendition of it.
This song represents the struggles of the Great Depression pretty well. It also shows how especially hard it must have been for those who lived in the Dust Bowl. It seems like America wasn't exactly the land of opportunity during this time.
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