Twenty-Two Tracks Previously Unreleased and 13 Songs That Guthrie Never Recorded Elsewhere
–NY Times
“Historically significant.”
–Washington Post
Home recordings by the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, Songwriters Hall of Famers, International Folk Music Award Lifetime Achievement honoree, and GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award winner Woody Guthrie will be released in the two-volume landmark collection Woody At Home – Volumes 1 & 2 on one CD, LP, digital download, and streaming release via Shamus Records, label subsidiary of TRO Essex Music Group, Woody’s publisher, on August 14, 2025. This collection contains 22 previously-unreleased recordings, including 13 Guthrie songs not heard on any of his other recordings as well as three spoken word tracks. These rare recordings include “This Land is Your Land,” featuring new verses. The collection also includes previously unheard home recordings of “Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done,” “Pastures of Plenty,” and “Jesus Christ.” These recently restored analog tapes will be released alongside previously unpublished family photographs, artwork, and lyric sheets.
Already, outlets such as Pitchfork, Smithsonian Magazine, Consequence, Stereogum, People, and Rolling Stone, and beyond have covered the highly-anticipated release. The New York Times ran a feature, calling the collection a “treasure trove.”
On Friday, Shamus Records released the bolstering anti-fascist song “I’m a Child Ta Fight” as a single. HEAR/SHARE
Album pre-save link: https://tunelink.to/WoodyAtHome
Album liner notes by Kathryn Ostien of Shamus Records (label subsidiary of TRO Essex Music Group, Woody’s publisher) and Notes on the Transfer and Restoration Process: https://woodyathome.com/about
In audio found on these original home tapes, Guthrie himself explains: “I just want to tell you fellers that I’m awful glad sending this batch of songs to you. This sounds like about the best tape I made so far… I was here at home watching the kids by myself. So the kids tapes I’m sending you, the ones with me and the kids on them, I don’t want you sending them back or anything like that. I just want you to keep them and play them, and see the place from whence all good folk songs breed and spring.”
On July 14, Woody’s only known recording of his original song “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape)” was released as a single. “Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape),” (also known as “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos”) was originally written in 1948 in response to a New York Times article about a plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon, California that killed 32 people, including 28 migrant farm workers.
The Making of Woody At Home
Woody At Home was painstakingly brought back to life, using vintage Ampex tape machines and sophisticated de-mixing and restoration software. Woody’s voice and guitar are unchanged from what was on the original recordings. What has changed is the balance between them and the ambiance around them. The producers made sure to keep in all the sounds of Woody’s family life, knocks at the door, and background sounds as part of the intimacy of the recording. There was no generative AI used in the restoration process. The restoration process simply allows us to hear Woody’s original performances without being clouded or obscured by hums or hisses.
Nearly 75 years after they were made, the recordings have been newly transferred and produced by GRAMMY-winner Steve Rosenthal (The Rolling Stones, Blondie, Lou Reed, Natalie Merchant, Laura Nyro) and restored and mastered by GRAMMY nominee Jessica Thompson (Kurt Vile, Erroll Garner, Mickey Newbury, Ralph Stanley, Lou Reed, Janis Ian).
“It has been my great pleasure to get to know and work with the Guthrie family for the past 25 years,” says Rosenthal. “With recent advancements in sound restoration technology along with the current political climate, I believe this is the right time to release Woody’s home tapes. These are not professional studio recordings, but instead, highlights from Woody’s audio sketchbooks.”
Co-producer and liner note writer Ostien says, “This is 100% Woody. Raw and clear. For the first time ever. And it’s brilliant.”
The new set was produced by Anna Canoni, Kathy Ostien, and Steve Rosenthal.
Woody Guthrie’s Original Recordings
These raw and intimate home tapes were recorded in the early months of 1951 and 1952, at the family’s apartment in Beach Haven, Brooklyn. Woody made them as his musical introduction to his publisher. Woody got his first publishing deal in 1950 with a new startup, TRO, founded by music publisher Howie Richmond.
TRO Essex founder Howie Richmond said, “Woody was writing songs about the struggles of ordinary people faced with hard luck and tough times. He touched every subject fearlessly and honestly and gave hope to those in greatest need… Woody was a hero to me before I ever met him and before I was a publisher… My goal was to hear everything he wanted to play. It was love and joy for me, from my heart.”
By 1950, two-channel tape recorders allowing recordings in stereo appeared in the United States for the first time. Able to get his hands on one, Howie sent the recorder to Woody in Brooklyn. Woody spoke, rambled, sang, and gave new context and intimate reflections into his songs using the single mic reel-to-reel machine. Woody sings about historic events, stories of the disenfranchised and ignored, love, and of course, the fight against fascism.
Thirty-eight-year old Woody Guthrie recorded these songs himself into one microphone on a reel-to-reel tape machine at the Guthrie family’s two-bedroom apartment, located at 49 Murdock Court, in the Beach Haven apartment complex, Brooklyn, NY in the early months of 1951 and 1952. The tracks include sounds of Woody’s then-toddlers as well as doors opening.
His last of the home tapes—the last Woody Guthrie recordings made—were sent to TRO in December 1952. In total, 32 tapes and more than 300 recordings of Woody at home were submitted.
Anna Canoni, Woody’s granddaughter and President of Woody Guthrie Publications, adds: “What I love about this project is that my grandfather is closer than he has ever been; it’s like I’m sitting in the same room with him, listening to him work through a song. Woody is rough and raw. It’s like we pulled back the curtain and get to hear his process. Songs about love, loss, racism, injustice, fascism, and greed. It’s all in there, just sit back and listen. As my grandfather once wrote, “I’ll use a song and my guitar to tell the things that are right and the things that are wrong.””
“Woody is just Woody,” John Steinbeck wrote, continuing, “Thousands know him by no other name. He is a voice with a guitar. He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.”
About Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. Over the decades, his songs have run around the world like a fast train on a well-oiled track. They’ve become the folk song standards of the nation, known and performed in many languages throughout the world. He wrote over 3,000 songs in his lifetime, hundreds of which have become staples in the canon of American music. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as “This Land Is Your Land.”
About Woody Guthrie Publications
Woody Guthrie Publications is the home for all things Woody Guthrie. Since Woody’s passing in 1967, three generations of Guthrie’s family have been the administrators of Woody’s creative legacy. First through Woody’s wife Marjorie Guthrie, then daughter Nora Guthrie, and now granddaughter Anna Canoni, they have consistently reminded us that Woody’s work is enlightening, inspiring, edifying, and most importantly, current – spotlighting Woody Guthrie as a significant guiding voice and citizen of the world. For more information, visit. WoodyGuthrie.org.
WOODY AT HOME: VOL. 1 & 2 TRACK LISTING
VOLUME 1, SIDE A
1. This Land Is Your Land (Woody’s Home Tape) (3:00)
2. Biggest Thing That Man Has Ever Done (2:53)
3. Howie, I’d Like To Talk To Yuh (spoken word) (2:25)
4. Deportee (Woody’s Home Tape) (3:47)
5. Great Ship (2:53)
6. Pastures of Plenty (3:11)
VOLUME 1, SIDE B
7. Jesus Christ (4:39)
8. I’m a Child Ta Fight (2:23)
9. Innocent Man (3:32)
10. I’ve Got To Know (4:17)
11. Backdoor Bum and the Big Landlord (3:18)
VOLUME 2, SIDE A
1. I Just Want To Tell You Fellers (spoken word) (0:55)
2. Peace Call (4:11)
3. Ain’t Afraid To Die (3:35)
4. Buoy Bells from Trenton (3:54)
5. Einstein Theme Song (with spoken word) (1:19)
6. One Little Thing An Atom Can’t Do (3:35)
VOLUME 2, SIDE B
7. Forsaken Lover (4:15)
8. My Id & My Ego (3:20)
9. Lifebelt Washed Up (5:17)
10. Funny Mountain (1:57)
11. You Better Git Ready (2:42)
“I’M A CHILD TA FIGHT” LYRICS
I’m ruff, I’m tuff, I’m double tuff
Cast iron through and through
My eyeballs both are forty fours,
And my teeth are thirty twos.
I’m a child ta fight!
I’m a child ta fight!
Hey all you fascists, here I come!
I’m a child ta fight.
I’ve marched in fifty armies;
I’ve won two hundred wars;
I’m gonna lay them fascists down
If it takes me a thousand years.
Nobody big enough to bully me;
Cain’t slap my folks around;
Grab my ole squirrely gun in my hand,
I’ll bring you superboys down!
I’m a child ta fight,
I’m a child ta fight!
Look out you fascists, here I come!
I’m a child ta fight!
Hitler blasted Europe down
From Russia down to Spain;
I’ma gonna take my choppin’ axe
An’ bust that Hitler chain!
My toes are made of pigiron;
My hands are tempered steel
Grab me a ‘zooky and a war tank, yes
And stop that Hitler heel.
I’m a child ta fight,
I’m a child ta fight!
Look out you fascists, here I come!
I’m a child ta fight!
You fascists got my temper up,
You supers got me mad;
Before my fists gits through with you,
Y’r gonna look porely sad
It’s when I crossed that ocean foam
With my rifle on that hut,
I shot so daddbern many ways,
I opened up a dozen fronts.
I’m a child ta fight,
I’m a child ta fight!
Look out you fascists, here I come!
I’m a child ta fight!
