Lyr Add: El Do Re Mi

Subject: RE: El Do Re Mi
From: Suffet
Date: 15 Jan 01 - 08:35 AM

I doubt that it was ever recorded, but it may have appeared in the Peoples' Song Bulletin or some other mimeographed publication. I suggest you check with the Woody Guthrie Archives at 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107.

-- Steve

Subject: RE: El Do Re Mi
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jan 01 - 08:11 PM

Good version Suffet! I think if Woody were around today, those are the kind of changes he'd have made to it.

I'd like to here Woody's tune sometime though. Never been recorded anywhere has it?

Subject: RE: El Do Re Mi
From: Suffet
Date: 14 Jan 01 - 08:35 AM

Two very different songs, although I do see the conncetion, of course.

By the way, if youdon't know the story of "Deportees," here is a brief (?) summary courtesy of information I gleaned from Joe Offer, Joe Klein, and Harold Leventhal.

On January 28, 1948, a chartered airplane crashed in Los Gatos Canyon, about 20 miles west of Coalinga, California. All aboard perished, including the crew, several immigration agents, and 28 Mexican farmworkers who were in the process of being deported. Woody Guthrie claimed that he heard a radio broadcast report of the crash in which someone stated that the 28 Mexicans were "just deportees" and did not give their names when the names of the crew and agents were announced. In response, Woody wrote the song that he called variously "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos," "Deportees," and "Goodbye to My Juan." Woody performed the song as at least one of the Peoples' Artists hoots in New York, but his original tune was almost a flat monotone and it (the tune) was not well received.

About 10 years later, a young folk singer named Martin Hoffman wrote a new and hauntingly beautiful tune to go with Woody's lyrics. Cisco Houston, Woody's old sidekick, soon recorded "Deportees" for Vanguard using Hoffman's tune. So did Judy Collins, and the song quickly became an American folk standard.

By that time, however, Woody was seriously ill with Huntington's disease, and he was confined to a mental hospital. It is doubtful that he ever sang the Hoffman tune himself, but it is pretty well established that others sang it to him.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: El Do Re Mi
From: Melani
Date: 14 Jan 01 - 12:29 AM

For a more serious version, try "Song of the Deportees."

Subject: El Do Re Mi
From: Suffet
Date: 13 Jan 01 - 10:02 PM

EL DO RE MI

Original words & music: Woody Guthrie © Ludlow Music 1961
New words: Stephen L. Suffet © 2000
Dedicated to Carol of Cupertino
(She knows who she is.)

Just like back in Woody's day,
Folks are leaving home today,
Heading al Norte,
To the California line.
Across the desert sands they roll,
Across the plains of Mexico,
They think they're going to a sugar bowl,
But here is what they find:
La Migra at the border always say,
You're number fourteen thousand for today.
No tiene el do re mi, boys,
No tiene el do re mi,
You better go back to beautiful Chiapas,
Or somewhere down in Paraguayee.
California is a Garden of Eden,
It's a Paradise to live in or to see,
But believe it or not,
You you won't find it so hot,
No tiene el do re mi.

Now if you own a house and land,
Come take your kids to Disneyland,
Welcome to California,
Come see a Dodger game.
But if you're running low on luck,
And you come to earn a buck,
You're gonna find your welcome,
It isn't quite the same.
'Cause I look through the want ads every day,
And the headlines on the papers always say,
No tiene el do re mi, boys,
No tiene el do re mi,
You better go back to beautiful Chiapas,
Or somewhere down in Paraguayee.
California is a Garden of Eden,
A Paradise to live in or to see,
But believe it or not,
You you won't find it so hot,
No tiene el do re mi.