Woody Guthrie still musically relevant

Woody Guthrie

Carol Forsloff -  An Indie film called "Hobo with a Shotgun," shows an angry man with a shotgun as its message, but the contemporary hobo is neither a romantic hero nor sadistic bum but likely your neighbor's son or the street person of Guthrie's "Hobo's Lullaby." Woody Guthrie, music troubadour of the Great Depression remains musically relevant.

Even as the economic downturn that took the country down from 2008 to a slow recovery, it left thousands of ordinary young men without work.  Many still struggle to find full-time jobs.  The recovery has been long and lasting even longer for certain people whose work has either been down-sized or diminished as technology has replaced many jobs.

Young adults still live with their parents, as many did in the Depression years.  During that time young men rode the rails in search of work or just to find a place to call home.  Woody Guthrie identified with these stresses and wrote about them as he too rode the rails, writing and singing and continuing to express the feelings of his generation.

But this generation might also find themselves in the words and music of a man whose own personal miseries might be seen as reflecting those of others who still sit around campfires, but these on the outside of cities, as some hold signs looking for work.  

Still with commercial travel and train routes reduced but with ridership increased, the opportunities for catching a ride on the rails is not like it was in those days the Great Depression depicts as part of the lifestyle.  These days young people are more apt to find their ways to that somewhere better by car, hitchhiking along the road or finding a willing trucker to take them along for the ride.

But the modern hobo has a language and culture, in many ways different than the past.  At the same time the notion of banding in a brotherhood of sorts still remains.  Gizmodo tells us there is even a hobo code, with symbols  sent by electronic means about places to use wireless communication or find free fuel for cars.  The Modern Hobo Code  is said to have been put together by Rob Cockerham.

The Modern Hobo Code is defined by its creators as "a system of symbols drawn to aid one's fellow vagabonds and make life on the streets a bit more comfortable. The only trouble is that it didn't really take modern technologies into consideration much—until now.

The new "e-way" of communication allows young hobos to learn where jobs are, places to stay, and what areas to avoid, as opposed to the old methods of networks by rumors and stories that advanced the life as desirable with all its adventures and fun.  The life of the hobo of history meant having a trade to get by, a talent to sell, and a network of people who could provide work in exchange for some money or food.  According to hobo history,  many of the 500 or so a day hobos prior to World War II entered the service, got the G.I. bill and became settled in towns and cities across the country.  They were often aided by rural folk, many of whom had family members who took to survival by riding the rails.

The life was harsh, the independence, however, part of the narrative too:

"I be Hobo, I be FREE

So the love of freedom and the wonder or wanderlust of the Hobo as led them to explore the places the rest of the world did not go and often did not want to go, but also help them to understand real freedom.

"I did no justice to the Hobo, and I am just a traveler without a home. I appreciate their free spirit, but also understand the loneliness, and possibly the life of a Hobo with no future. There are lot of Hoboes in the world that neither can return to their homes, do not remember how to return home, and when they do return, find they must leave for the road calls, and they only feel complete when they are traveling."

Today's hobo is a different sort, a young person who gets caught up in drugs, human trafficking and living in cities where police and the populace move the street folks along, in some areas violently.  The average homeless person is now a child with an average age of nine, many of whom grow up without stability and get lost on the streets.  Others take to the streets because there is nothing else, according to a Stanford study in 2003, and get involved in drugs or become victims of human trafficking schemes.

The present-day hobo is not the same as great grandfather was years ago, but likely a lost and lonely young man and woman with simply nowhere else to go but the roads and the streets of our cities.  He or she, or the child you see, is the hobo of Arlo Guthrie's lullaby.  Arlo Guthrie is the son of Woody Guthrie, whose music painted a picture of America's plight, as Arlo Guthrie's song "Hobo's Lullaby" captures it still, a reflection of his father's musical relevance.