Beatitudes
Words by Woody Guthrie
Contact Publisher - Woody Guthrie Publications/BMG Chrysalis
1. Brethren preach Jesus Christ and him crucified,
2. And King Tutankahmen and him mummy-fied,
3. And the electric chair and it electrified,
4. Yea, and preach the legs of beautiful girls, their sweet sunkist faces and rounded breasts which as ye remember that Hollywood glorified
5. And go forth bolder to serve and to work and let your going be your boldness and your learning be your work and your preaching of humanity unified and made into one big happy family and it stupefied,
6. For Truth, bretheren, Truth, that is your mission and your coming and going,
7. And unless ye seek and thirst after Truth even as a Jackass brays to breed its mate, even as the doe and the deer seek the wilderness, even as the Oakies sought to find work picking fruit in the green trees of California and across the flat sands of the Arizona desert,
8. I say, beloved, if it be not Truth that ye seek in your traveling and preach, what use is it to travel, or to preach?
9. Preach the Forest of Arizona and it petrified, and curse Wall Street for it is putrefied and rank and filthy and will one day be made clean by Love,
10. And that Love is so strong and powerful that it shall look like Hate,
11. But ye shall know it by this sign, and when Love shall appear as Hate – you shall know Love, for it shall contain no greed.
12. You are a worker and work is a way of loving,
13. Even so, work is also a struggle, and work is to wrestle – and work is good and so is the fight when it contains no silly greed.
© Copyright Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. (BMI)
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