Dec 14

I Ain’t Got No Home

Highly Appreciated

I AIN’T GOT NO HOME

 
“I Ain’t Got No Home”  is a song made popular by Woody Guthrie in which the singer laments the difficulties that life presents him.  It was based on the old gospel song known variously as “Can’t Feel at Home” or “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore”, a version of which was recorded by the Carter Family in 1931.  (More from Wikipedia)
  
 
Two of his songs (Ron Franklin writes all of his own material) basically quote Bob Dylan.  The other is “We Ain’t Got No Home”, which has a title and some lyrics that are virtually the same as Woody Guthrie’s “I Ain’t Got No Home”.  In the very beginning, Dylan was described as being just one among a host of Guthrie wannabes; but “I Ain’t Got No Home” is one of the very few Guthrie songs that Dylan recorded, even before he did much songwriting – I speak as someone owning dozens of Dylan bootleg albums as well as virtually all of his Columbia and Asylum releases. 
 
(January 2012)
 
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I have written previously of another song on Dust Bowl Ballads, “I Ain’t Got No Home”.  Although Bob Dylan idolized him, it is one of the very few Woody Guthrie songs that Dylan recorded.  Also, “I Ain’t Got No Home” virtually shares a title and many of the lyrics with one of the songs by past UARA Ron Franklin, “We Ain’t Got No Home”.  It is hard not to simply list the total lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s songs, they are so organically written; here are two choice verses from “I Ain’t Got No Home”: 

 

     My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road,

     A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod;

     Rich man took my home and drove me from my door

     And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

 

     Now as I look around, it’s mighty plain to see

     This world is such a great and a funny place to be;

     Oh, the gamblin’ man is rich an’ the workin’ man is poor,

     And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.

 
(March 2015)
 
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Arlo Guthrie’s father Woody Guthrie has been in the news lately; among other notes along the same lines, a reworking of one of his best known songs, “I Ain’t Got No Home” came to light in his papers that included a scathing indictment as a racist of “old man Trump”, that is, Fred Trump, the father of Donald Trump. Guthrie had signed a lease in December 1950 at one of the elder Trump’s apartment complexes near Coney Island, called Beach Haven and began noticing the lily-white neighborhood where it was located. 
(March 2016)
Last edited: March 22, 2021