It was nearly 20 years when the Dropkick Murphys visited the Woody Guthrie archives, picked out a random set of unfinished lyrics that vaguely alluded to the band's hometown, and then turned that little pirate shanty into the iconic rock anthem "Shipping Up To Boston." More recently, the band returned to the Guthrie archives, arranging and recording a whole new collection of Woody's unpublished tunes, not unlike what Billy Bragg and Wilco did with the Mermaid Avenue sessions all those years ago. (I had a lovely chat with Woody's granddaughter, Anna, back in September, who said that the band wanted to do something that honored Woody's radical anti-fascist legacy, instead of just some random nonsense about a peg leg. Which, fair; "Shipping Up To a Boston" is a banger but this lyrics are weird, even before you remember they were written by Guthrie.)
The Murphys released their first Guthrie-penned album, This Machine Still Kills Fascists, back in September 2022, with another follow-up, Okemah Rising, due in May. That first collection of songs includes a rollicking union anthem called "All You Fonies." But on the band's recent European tour, the song took on a new life as an anti-Tory anthem. So they just released a new, live recording of the song, reworked as "All You Tories" — once again proving that Woody Guthrie's songs remain painfully relevant.
Solidarity. ✊
