Tom Russell has always been one of those artists who rewards repeat listens. The first time I heard this song, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It seemed to wander a little, and I found myself wondering where it was going. Then it clicked. That’s the beauty of Russell’s writing. He doesn’t always give you a catchy chorus or an obvious hook. Instead, he invites you into a story and lets it unfold at its own pace. If you like songs that make you think, and maybe send you looking up a little history afterward, it is well worth your time.
Tom Russell has always had a gift for writing songs that blur the line between history and storytelling. Whether he’s singing about the American West, Mexico, or forgotten characters from the past, his songs often feel like short stories set to music. This one is no different. At first listen, it may leave you wondering where it’s headed, but stick with it. Like many of Russell’s best songs, it slowly unfolds into something memorable.
The song first appeared on Tom Russell’s 2005 concept album Hotwalker, the middle chapter of a trilogy that began with The Man From God Knows Where (1999) and concluded ten years later with The Rose of Roscrae (2015). The album tells a story that stretches across generations and the American frontier, mixing fictional characters with real historical figures.
With this song, Russell tips his hat to Woody Guthrie (Woodrow Wilson Guthrie), weaving history into the lives of ordinary people. It’s a style Russell has made his own over the years. Rather than simply retelling history, he puts listeners right in the middle of it. I will admit, when I saw the title, I thought it was about President Woodrow Wilson.
Musically, the song has the easy, conversational feel that suits Russell perfectly. He has never needed big production to hold your attention. His strength has always been his writing and the way he paints scenes with simple details. That’s one reason so many songwriters admire him. He trusts the story to carry the song, and more often than not, it does.
Woodrow
When people twist your words, Woodrow
Oh, they’ll twist at every whim
It’s thugs that run the unions now
And use your songs like hymns
Once your music danced on women’s thighs
In the arch of a hobo’s brow
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what they’ve done
To your brown-eyed baby now
Ah, the trains leave every morning
Some go east and some go west
And the clacking of the iron
Is the sound you loved the best
It’s the great escape from railroad bulls
And the Coney Island girls
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what we’ve done
To your brown-eyed boy with curls
Sing the truth, scream it loud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what they’ve done
To your brown-eyed baby now
Ah, those boxcars full of Chinese junk
The caboose has been junk piled
And we’re all buying groceries now
From men with crooked smiles
You were a drunken, wild misogynoir
And your politics were crude
As you sat home writing nursery rhymes
And drawing women nude
And all those politicians’ breath stink bad
Be they left or be they right
And the ones who play with rhetoric
Are not the ones who fight
Don’t go comin’ ’round here, Woodrow
They’ll stretch you from a rope, yeah
And your corpse won’t ever find a bar
Where a man can drink and smoke
Sing the truth, scream it loud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what they’ve done
To your brown-eyed baby now
Did you hear the screen door slam, Mom?
Woodrow’s gone again
He’s writing obscene letters now
And the feds might bring him in
But every song he ever wrote
Is hangin’ on the breeze
With the laundry in the Guthrie yard
Full of Huntington’s disease
So, Woodrow, rest in peace, old pal
There ain’t nothin’ for you here
We’re in the scrub oak country now
The land of dread and fear
And Whitey’s in the woodpile
And the writing’s on the wall
But your ring of truth still echoes down
The gray stone clinic halls
Sing the truth, scream it loud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what they’ve done
To your brown-eyed baby now
So here’s to all outsiders
All the ones who could not fit
The troubadour, the prisoners
The drunken Indian
Ah, the circus freaks, the wounded lovers
We’ll make it through somehow
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, we are ridin’ blind
With your brown-eyed baby now
Sing the truth, scream it loud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what we’ve done
To your brown-eyed baby now
Scream the truth, scream it loud
Ah, Mrs. Guthrie, look what we’ve done
To your brown-eyed baby now
