The sound quality on this recording is terrible; no doubt that's why it isn't heard more often. I don't know the history of this recording; perhaps it was a demo. It has only a spare monotonous accompaniment on guitar. It certainly sounds unpolished. Apparently it was written in 1941 when Guthrie was working for the Department of the Interior, writing songs for a documentary about the Columbia River and its new Grand Coulee Dam—but maybe the other, more familiar version (see above) was written then, too.


PASTURES OF PLENTY
As recorded by Woody Guthrie on "American Radical Patriot" (2013)

1. It's a mighty hard road that our poor hand has hoed,
And our poor feet has traveled a hot dusty road.
Out of the dust bowl and westward we rolled,
And your deserts are hot and your mountains as cold.

2. I picked up a rich clod of dirt in my hand.
I crumbled it back into strong fertile land.
The greatest desire in this world that I know
Is to work on my land where there's green things to grow.

3. I think of the dust and the days that are gone,
And the days that's to come on a farm of our own.
One turn of the wheel and the waters will flow
'Cross the green growing fields down a hot thirsty road.

4. Look down in the canyon and there you will see:
Grand Coulee showers her blessings on me:
Lights for the city, for fact'ry and mills,
Green pastures of plenty from dry barren hills.

5. It's always we've rambled, that river and I.
It's here on her banks I will work till I die.
My land I'll defend with my life if it be,
'Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free.

[Repeat verse 5. (He sings "if need be" on the repeat.)]