Dia de homenagem e de sabermos quem somos

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. ... I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.

And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow. "

Não sei a data certa desta citação de Woody Guthrie, mas tem seguramente  mais de meia centena de anos. Este é o ano do centenário do seu nascimento e muitas das batalhas que travou estão longe de estar ganhas. Outras novas surgiram, entretanto. Sempre admirei este cantautor, que trilhou um caminho muito próprio, sem se deslumbrar com as luzes da ribalta, sem perder o sentido crítico. Porque, apesar de tudo e de algumas aparências, há sempre quem não se venda. Porque, como Guthrie dizia na canção "This land is your land" (aqui cantada pelo Springsteen):

"Nobody livin' can ever stop me

'Cause I go walkin' down freedom highway

Nobody livin' can make me turn back

This land was made for you and me."

E é mesmo. E não vamos voltar atrás! Grande Woody, obrigada pela música que tocas no meu subconsciente nas batalhas do dia-a-dia!