Speaking of Woody, activist English rock singer Billy Bragg teamed up with the American alternative rock band Wilco in 1998 to create new music for several unperformed Woody Guthrie songs where only lyrics were available (there are more than 1,000 such songs that Guthrie wrote). Named Mermaid Avenue for the street in Coney Island, New York where Woody lived for many years, they looked upon the albums as a collaboration of modern rock musicians with the legendary troubadour of the Depression era.
Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II followed in 2000; “All You Fascists” was originally released on this album. In 2010, Nina Hagen released an album called Personal Jesus that includes “All You Fascists Bound to Lose”. A box set that collected the two earlier CD’s with a third disc of additional music was released in 2012 and called Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions.
“Christ for President” appears on Mermaid Avenue and has these neat lyrics:
Let’s have Christ our President
Let us have him for our king
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
That you call the Nazarene
. . .
Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars
But with the Carpenter on the seat
Way up in the Capital town
The USA would be on the way
Prosperity Bound!
(November 2014)
