Thanksgiving Message From Arlo Guthrie

Thanksgiving is upon us and as a family and community we usher in the holiday season doing what we do best - following the admonition of our legacy to ‘Feed Everyone,’ as Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati reminded us her Guru, Neem Karoli Baba would say to her. We’ve just finished three nights of singing and playing at the old church as a benefit in support of the community that continues our good work there. My father, Woody Guthrie once described a folksong this way:

“A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it. Or it could be 

who's hungry and where their mouth is. Or who's out of work and where the job is. Or who's broke and where the money is. Or 

who's carrying a gun and where the peace is.”

(Woody Guthrie)

In our family, we carry on the tradition of singing those kinds of songs to all kinds of people. He also reminded us of exactly what our job as folksingers actually is. “It’s a folksinger’s job to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable,” he wrote. If we weren’t disturbing someone we wouldn’t be doing our job.

Thanksgiving Day we will get together with dozens of volunteers at the church and help deliver a “Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat,” to all those in our community who can be there. We’ve been doing it in addition to our weekly free feed, as part of our commitment to “Think globally and act locally” as Pete Seeger used to say. 

This year (2016) we will also collect contributions in support of our friends - The Protectors - at Standing Rock. The course of the river of civilization runs toward non-destructive renewable energy. Those who are trying to squeeze the last few drops out of a profitable fossil fuel industry are doomed to failure in the long run - It’s not political, It’s just common sense. And those who would harm the earth and their fellow humans for their last few cents of income are, thankfully fading from the world stage. Time to ‘get the hook.’

The last show of our calendar year will be, as always at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Saturday November 26, 2016 we are bringing our “Running Down The Road Tour” to Carnegie Hall. We are doing more than a few of those old Bob Dylan songs we used to do decades ago, in addition to some brand new never recorded songs of my own. And of course, as always some songs from the family tradition. See you there!