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"Pastures of Plenty" is a 1941 composition by Woody Guthrie. Describing the travails and dignity of migrant workers in North America, it is evocative of the world described in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The tune is based on the ballad "Pretty Polly", a traditional English-language folk song from the British Isles that was also well known in the Appalachian region of North America.

Recorded versions

• Harry Belafonte
• Bob Dylan
• Tom Paxton
• Jesse Colin Young
• Peter Tevis (The instrumental version of this song composed by Ennio Morricone was later used as the theme to A Fistful of Dollars)
• Peter, Paul and Mary
• Dave Van Ronk (on Just Dave Van Ronk)
• Ramblin' Jack Elliot
• Flatt and Scruggs
• Will Geer
• Kingston Trio
• Country Joe MacDonald
• Odetta
• The Alarm
• Solas
• Alison Krauss & Union Station
• Paul Kelly
• Lila Downs
• Cisco Houston
• Karl Denver
• Scott H. Biram
• The Travellers
• Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert (duet)
• The Wayfarers
• Gareth Davies-Jones
• Frank Tovey
• Tim O'Brien
• John McCutcheon

Published versions

• Rise Up Singing page 55

Popular culture

The phrase is used in a different context in the song "Talking Vietnam Pot-Luck Blues" by Tom Paxton.

The line "we come with the dust and we go with the wind" reappears as "that come with the dust and are gone with the wind" in Bob Dylan's "Song to Woody".

The song is referenced in Phil Ochs's "Bound for Glory" in the lyric, "And it's "Pastures of Plenty" wrote the dustbowl balladeer."

References

1. "Pastures of Plenty · Roll On, Columbia: Woody Guthrie in the Pacific Northwest Archives".
2. "GUTHRIE, Woody: Pastures of Plenty (1940-1947)". Naxos.com.
3. "FAME Review: Doing our Job: John McCutcheon and Tom Chapin".

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