Jesus Christ

06. Jesus Christ
(Woody Guthrie/TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc., BMI)

Track 6 – Jesus Christ (MASTER MA 135)
Though baptized in Pampa’s Church of Christ by the charismatic E.C.McKenzie, Guthrie was widely read in world religions; indeed, on official forms when asked his religion, he wrote, “All.” Seemingly in February of 1941, he wrote there was a better way coming, “when there shall be no want among you, because you’ll own everything in common.When the rich will give their goods to the poor. I believe in this way. I just can’t believe in any other way. This is the Christian way… and it will come. To own everything in common. That’s what the bible says. Common means all of us. This is pure old Commonism.” Guthrie was, in effect, a Christian socialist, a not uncommon breed in early 20th Century Oklahoma. He took the spirit of the New Testament to heart, even if he did not read Scripture or attend church. These feelings he poured in early 1939 into “Jesus Christ,” casting the Savior as a social outlaw – and appropriating for his song the melody and structure of the traditional American ballad about another outlaw, “Jesse James.”

Guthrie sings accompanied by his own guitar.