That followed his rendition of Guthrie’s “Vigilante Man,” which Cooder updated with a verse about Trayvon Martin that felt organically true on the heels of Guthrie’s verse that asks, “Why does a vigilante man carry that sawed-off shotgun in his hand? Would he shoot his brother and sister down?” He finds no shortage of that suffering in the world around him today, in the harsh rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration toward immigrants and the less fortunate, themes he addressed in one of the album’s four original songs, “Jesus and Woody,” his imagined meeting in heaven between the two champions of the downtrodden and the meek (the Woody is folk hero Woody Guthrie).Ĭooder was at his most poetic, and most pointed, in that song that outlines how he thinks Jesus might assess the actions of the people of Earth these days: “Once I spoke of a love for those who hate / It requires effort and strain / Vengeance casts a false shadow of justice / Which leads to destruction and pain.”Īnd it wasn’t just a metaphorical finger Cooder wagged at his audience when he reached that song’s cautionary call to action: “You good people better get together / Or you ain’t got a chance anymore,” taking his right hand off his guitar for a moment to wiggle his index finger in their general direction.
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