{"id":503,"date":"2016-03-15T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=503"},"modified":"2025-08-30T15:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T19:16:10","slug":"roll-on-columbia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/roll-on-columbia\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll On, Columbia (Woody Guthrie\/Pete Seeger)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roll On, Columbia\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fkpfGsZhbbQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Youthful prejudices surface yet again&#8230; Going back to Pete Seeger&#8217;s <em>Gazette<\/em> LP, I was surprised to find &#8220;Roll On, Columbia,&#8221; since I thought it was something I&#8217;d learned in elementary school music classes, along with &#8220;This Land Is Your Land,&#8221; and had filed it among the wildly overdone Woody songs that I&#8217;d better avoid.\u00a0 But, since I was doing a bunch of other songs off that LP, I figured I&#8217;d give this a try, and realized why it got overdone&#8230; it&#8217;s so much damn fun to sing.<\/p>\n<p>Plus, singing through the verses, I remembered the thrill I got when I first traveled through the Columbia River Gorge, recognizing all those names from Woody&#8217;s song: <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-507  alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/columbia-gorge-train.jpg?resize=355%2C233\" alt=\"columbia gorge train\" width=\"355\" height=\"233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/columbia-gorge-train.jpg?w=400&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/columbia-gorge-train.jpg?resize=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 355px) 100vw, 355px\" \/>Bonneville, Hood River, the Snake River&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It was 1980, and I was seeing it the right way, riding a freight train out of Portland. I did most of that trip with a Black hobo named Joe, and skin color provides a punchline to this story &#8212; because that was about five months after Mount St. Helens erupted, the ground was still covered with ash, we were riding a flatcar, and by the time we reached Pasco we were both the same uniform shade of gray.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, Joe knew a flophouse near the yards in Pasco where we could get showers &#8212; but that showed me one of the disadvantages of riding the rails: it&#8217;s more picturesque than hitchhiking, but you get into town looking like you&#8217;ve been riding a freight train.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of race&#8230; while researching these notes, I listened to Woody&#8217;s recording, and realized that I have no memory of ever hearing it &#8212; in particular, I have no memory of the patriotic verse about US troops executing Native American captives:<\/p>\n<p><i>Remember the trial when the battle was won,<br \/>\nThe wild Indian warriors to the tall timber run,<br \/>\nWe hung every Indian with smoke in his gun;<br \/>\nRoll on, Columbia, Roll on!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-510 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Woody-sings-for-Indian-seamen-237x300.jpg?resize=232%2C294\" alt=\"Woody sings for Indian seamen\" width=\"232\" height=\"294\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Woody-sings-for-Indian-seamen.jpg?resize=237%2C300&amp;ssl=1 237w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Woody-sings-for-Indian-seamen.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px\" \/><\/i>Which I guess goes to show that even a dedicated leftist who by then had become an ardent believer in civil rights for Black Americans could revert to his white Oklahoma pioneer youth&#8230; or that taking a job writing propaganda for US government engineering projects can short circuit someone&#8217;s other beliefs&#8230; (Woody wrote this one on a government contract, and was being provided with background materials by other people involved in the project.) It&#8217;s a pretty weird anomaly in his repertoire, and I just called Woody&#8217;s biographer, Ed Cray, to get his thoughts, and he was as nonplussed as I was. I also talked to Joe Seamons, who has been working on a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.benjoemusic.com\/woodysnwsongs\/\">project about Woody&#8217;s Bonneville Power Administration songs<\/a>, and he suggested that someone else may have contributed the Indian-killing verses, as well as the one about Tom Jefferson&#8217;s empire-building vision. I&#8217;m guessing Woody probably wrote them, and he certainly sang them, but we all owe Pete Seeger a debt for intelligent editing of the version we sing today.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of Woody Guthrie&#8217;s best-known songs, with some thoughts on prejudices of various kinds and a reminiscence of riding the rails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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I've written about that trip in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Grand-Coulee-Dam.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Grand-Coulee-Dam.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Grand-Coulee-Dam.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Grand-Coulee-Dam.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3088,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/mail-myself-to-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":1},"title":"Mail Myself to You (Woody Guthrie)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"September 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is one of my favorite Woody Guthrie songs, and also one of the mysteries of my life on the folk scene, because... why do people keep saying it's a kids' song? Haven't they read Woody's books and looked at his drawings? Don't they know a love song when they\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/pete-seeger-little-boxes-cbs-5.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":156,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hard-aint-hard\/","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":2},"title":"Hard, Ain&#8217;t It Hard (Woody and Cisco)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This was one of the many songs Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston recorded together, with Woody typically singing lead. My mother was good about buying me records...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Woody archive of folk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Woody-archive-of-folk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1753,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/columbus-stockade-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":3},"title":"Columbus Stockade (Woody and Cisco)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the pleasures of playing on the street with Rob was that I had a second voice on the choruses of my favorite Woody Guthrie - Cisco Houston duets. I'd spent the previous couple of years learning blues and other stuff that lent itself to fingerstyle guitar,\u00a0 but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/woody-and-cisco-300x270.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":409,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/pretty-boy-floyd\/","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":4},"title":"Pretty Boy Floyd (Woody Guthrie\/Pete Seeger)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"As through this world you travel, you\u2019ll meet lots of funny men.\/ Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Seeger Gazette","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Seeger-Gazette-298x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6009,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/pastures-of-plenty\/","url_meta":{"origin":503,"position":5},"title":"Pastures of Plenty (Woody Guthrie)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another in the long list of Woody Guthrie songs I've known since my elementary school years, and stands out for me in part because Dave Van Ronk recorded it on his second Philo album, in a period when we were spending a lot of time together. I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Van-Ronk-Somebody-Else.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5929,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/5929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}