Corfu Blues and Global Views: Deportee: Interpretations of a Woodie Guthrie Song Lyric

I was chatting to Neil Harris at Dorchester market yesterday, and we talked briefly about the songs of Woodie Guthrie (as one does). Later, I thought about the closure of Portland's IRC (Immigration Removal Centre) - and some past incidents there that have been reported over the last three or four years.

'Extraordinary' number of detainees sent to mental health hospitals from the Verne, inquest hears, Dorset Echo

Home Office letter tells EU citizen to ‘go home or go elsewhere’, The Observer (update)

It made me go back to Woodie Guthrie's poem, Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee).

Here are various interpretations of the poem/song-lyric, as set to the melody by Martin Hoffman, on YouTube:

Cisco Houston

Arlo Guthrie and Hoyt Axton

Arlo Guthrie

Arlo Guthrie with Emmylou Harris

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez

Johnny Cash and Johnny Rodriguez

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen (1981)

Bruce Springsteen (1986)

Pete Seeger

The Byrds

Dolly Parton

The Highwaymen

Song Facts

More about the genesis of the song

NB

Professor Will Kaufman at the Bridport Arts Centre, 28 October, 2017, 8pm:

THE LONG ROAD TO PEEKSHILL

"The story of Woody Guthrie’s transformation from a youthful Oklahoma racist to the anti-racist champion who risked his life holding the line against American fascism during the notorious Peekskill riots of 1949".

See also, Billy Bragg (Burton Bradstock resident), Mermaid Avenue

I am going to hear Billy Bragg at the sold-out Bridport Literary Festival event on Sunday night, on "Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World".