Going Down The Road (I Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way)

11. Going Down the Road (I Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way)
(Woody Guthrie-Lee Hays/TRO-Hollis Music, Inc., BMI)

Track 11 – Going Down the Road (I Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way) (MASTER MA 44)
Yet another version – probably with Guthrie’s improvised verses – of the Okie theme song usually known as “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” (See track 2) In his notes to the song in Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, Guthrie wrote this song “is the truth, the living truth…. If you’re ever down in Oklahoma, or along the 66 Highway to California, and want to get to knowing somebody, some of the working folks, why just sort of saunter up along side of ‘em, or up past their gate, and hum this song, or whistle it. They’ll come a running out and take you into the house to try to help them scrape up something to eat.”

Here Guthrie and Houston each play guitars, Houston adding a few runs up the neck, Guthrie playing rhythm.