The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #581   Message #3868545
Posted By: Joe Offer
27-Jul-17 - 05:13 AM
Thread Name: Origins:Deportees-seeking original Woody recording
Subject: ADD Version: Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (W. Guthrie)
Up above, Doc John says that "Deportee" was published in John Greenway's American Folksongs of Protest (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953). I wonder if this could be the first printed edition of the song, or if it was printed elsewhere first.
I have a 1960 Perpetua edition of the Greenway book. The song appears (without music notation) on pp 294-295.

Notes: Guthrie's sympathy for the migratory worker is international. In this ballad he tells of the death of twenty-eight Mexican migrant deportees in an airplane crash near Coalinga, California, on January 28, 1948:

PLANE WRECK AT LOS GATOS
(Woody Guthrie)

The crops are all in and the peaches are rottening
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps;
You're flying them back to the Mexico border
To pay all their money to wade back again.

REFRAIN
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita;
Adios muy (sic) amigo, Jesus and Marie,
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be deportees.

My father's own father, he waded that river;
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to the Mexico border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains;
We died neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of this river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning which shook all our hills.
Who are these friends all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they are just deportees.

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves and rot on my top soil
And be called by no name except deportees?

Composed February 3, 1948

As you can see, the chorus has some problems. I wonder if the mistakes are from Woody Guthrie, or from Greenway.

I'm glad to see "Mexico border" - that's the way I sing it.
-Joe-


For contrast, here are the lyrics from woodyguthrie.org:

Plane Wreck at Los Gatos
(also known as "Deportee")
Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Martin Hoffman

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

 


© 1961 (renewed) by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)