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Woody Guthrie’s powerful song tells the life story of countless thousands of migrants. Toil, danger and exploitation without end, deportation and return. The crash of a plane carrying deportees with the loss of all lives and a news item of numbers, not names, fires Woody’s anger. Decades later, when the song has been sung a million times, names are re-discovered and victims can be properly remembered.

lyrics

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting,
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
It takes all their money to wade back again

Chorus
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All all they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters they worked in the fruit fields,
And rode on the trucks till they took down and died.

Chorus

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to the Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys, we died on your plains.

Chorus

We died 'neath your trees, we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, it shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They’re just deportees"

Chorus

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And never know no name except "deportees"?

Chorus

credits

from Misfits Migrants and Murders, released August 7, 2018
The Deportees (Guthrie) Jack, vocal and guitar; Zoe, vocal; Neil, mouth harp

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Jack Warshaw UK

Veteran of the 1960s folk revival, he passionately believes, writes and sings with authenticity and respect for traditional American styles and song carriers. He has met, learned from or worked with such legends as Pete, Mike and Peggy Seeger, Tom Paley, Ewan MacColl, Bob Dylan, Mississippi John Hurt, Clarence Ashley, Dave Van Ronk, Stuart Burns and many others. Watch Youtube. Bio on Wikipedia ... more

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