My son Danis over at Red Rose Music sent me a list of Woody Guthrie’s “New Years Rulin’s”. Everyone who is a Bob Dylan fan knows Woody as a primary early influence. Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician. He lived 1912-1967 and lived through the Great Depression. He traveled with migrant workers from his native Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. He was known as the Dust Bowl Troubadour. His song This Land is Your Land is one of the most famous in the American Songbook, and was sung as recently as last week in union protests in Wisconsin.
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Sometime along his journey Woody wrote a set of 40 “New Years Rulin’s”, and while we’re well into 2011, they’re worth pinning to the wall as a simple guide to life, no matter what the year or decade. Here are my top 10.
- Work more and better
- Write a song a day
- Read lots good books
- Don’t get lonesome
- Stay glad
- Dream good
- Bank all extra money
- Love Everybody
- Make up your mind
- Wake up and Fight
