Tear the Fascists Down

08. Tear the Fascists Down (previously unreleased)
(Woody Guthrie/Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc., BMI)

Track 8 – Tear the Fascists Down (MASTER MA 13)
Internal evidence suggests that this, one of Guthrie’s virtually unsung songs, was written sometime after November 19, 1942, when the Red Army launched its winter offensive along the Don River to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad. For some months, the American Communist Party and its allies had urged a “Second Front Now,” that is, an invasion of France by Allied forces to relieve pressure on the retreating Red Army. Hence the lines: “Good people, what are we waitin’ on?” and the reference to Paris in chains. The melody, of course, is that of “John Henry.”