Do Re Mi

Album: Dust Bowl Ballads (1937)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Guthrie didn't know music notation, but he had a way with words and found clever ways to communicate his ideas in his songs. The "Do Re Mi" is a system of learning music, but here Guthrie uses the "Do" as slang for money ("Dough"). Anna Canoni of the Woody Guthrie Foundation talks about the meaning of this song: "It's all about the migrants being illegally kept out of California in the Dust Bowl time in the '30s. So if you ain't got the do-re-mi, then you'd better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee. Because you won't be able to get into the Garden of Eden: California. So it's all about that time period, and the illegal border." (Anna is Woody Guthrie's granddaughter. Read more in her full interview. Learn much more at the official Woody Guthrie website.)
  • Artists to record this song include Blodwyn Pig, Ry Cooder, Will Geer, Cisco Houston, Tom Rush and Ani DiFranco. Tim McMullen also did it as part of his musical lectures "The Music of Woody Guthrie" and "Songs of the West" for the last thirty years.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Female Singers Of The 90s

Female Singers Of The 90sMusic Quiz

The ladies who ruled the '90s in this quiz.

Chad Channing (Nirvana, Before Cars)

Chad Channing (Nirvana, Before Cars)Songwriter Interviews

Chad tells tales from his time as drummer for Nirvana, and talks about his group Before Cars.

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," Kiss

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," KissSong Writing

After cutting his teeth on hardcore punk videos, Paul defined the grunge look with his work on "Hunger Strike" and "Man in the Box."

History Of Rock

History Of RockSong Writing

An interview with Dr. John Covach, music professor at the University of Rochester whose free online courses have become wildly popular.

Grammar In Lyrics

Grammar In LyricsMusic Quiz

Lyrics don't always follow the rules of grammar. Can you spot the ones that don't?

U2 Lyrics

U2 LyricsMusic Quiz

How well do you know the lyrics of U2?