Song 8: Jesus Christ

Woody Guthrie, another great American songwriter, wrote this song in 1940. At this point, America had already become a world power, and was a capitalist force to be reckoned with (ignoring the Great Depression, which the United States was recovering from). The idea of the song is to suggest what would happen if Jesus Christ were to preach his message to this era. In the end, the rich people of America, the bankers and entrepreneurs, would eventually hand Jesus the same fate he saw in his own time.

Somehow this doesn't surprise me. As a Christian, I know that Christ's message is very difficult to apply to the "real world", which, today, is even more capitalistic than it was when Guthrie wrote the song. I thought the song was very meaningful. It is almost a warning to the audience, that capitalism could eventually lead to the destruction of society, if taken too far. Further research shows that Guthrie was linked to Communist parties in the United States, which also does not surprise me. Perhaps Guthrie, who was from Oklahoma, was wary of capitalism due to the Great Depression. Oklahoma, being in the Great Plains, was hit with a double whammy, as not only did the economy fail, but the entire region experienced the Dust Bowl simultaneously. In today's age of great prosperity, Americans tend to be cocky, and see nothing that can topple our status of world power, but it is important to remember that there were times, like the Great Depression, that completely dispel this notion.