Vanzettis Letter
Channel: Jack Warshaw
Date: 2010-02-25

Woody Guthrie's setting of the story of Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian anarchists unjustly executed for murder in 1927, during the US "red scare." Part of an album commissioned in 1951 by Moses Asch of Folkways Records. As Vanzetti said just before his death: "Our words - our lives - our pains - nothing! The taking of our lives - lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler - all! That last moment belong to us - that agony is our triumph."  Critics dismiss the song as inferior Guthrie. I think it's one of his best. As far as I know noone else has recorded or performs it.