New Woody Guthrie music is on the way. Fifty-eight years after the singer died, his estate announced that it will release a new album of his previously unreleased songs.
Woody at Home, Vol. 1 & 2, which is due out Aug. 14, will include 20 songs and two spoken-word interludes Guthrie performed.
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Included on the album is a new version of Guthrie’s protest song “This is Your Land.” The LP will also feature 13 songs that fans could previously only experience through Guthrie’s written lyrics.
Guthrie recorded the songs at his family apartment in Beach Haven, Brooklyn, between 1951 and 1952. They wound up being Guthrie’s last recordings before he was hospitalized amid his battle with Huntington’s disease. He died in 1967 at age 55.
Guthrie’s estate initially didn’t think the audio was in good enough condition to release. However, new audio software allowed them to get the tracks up to par.
“My grandfather wrote, ‘A song ain’t nothing but a conversation you can have again and again,’” Anna Canoni, Guthrie’s granddaughter and the president of Woody Guthrie Publications, said. “It keeps this conversation in the narrative.”
“The song is the medium, but the conversation is what needs to be said, what needs to be had,” she added. “And unfortunately, it needs to be had again and again and again. That’s what Woody’s lyrics remind us of—these larger life lessons, these conversations that must continue.”
What to Know About Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee”
One song featured on the album is “Deportee,” which was released on July 14 in honor of Guthrie’s birthday.
The singer penned the track in 1948 in response to a New York Times article. The article covered a plane crash that occurred earlier that year. Thirty-two people perished in the crash, including 28 Mexican farm workers.
While the Americans passengers were identified by name in the article and had their bodies returned to their families, the Mexican passengers were all labeled “deportees” and buried in a mass grave.
“After reading the article, which only named the four Americans that perished, Woody wrote this song in—I don’t want to say anger or frustration, but perhaps in observation of the 28 Mexican nationals who were not named in the article, and moreover, an observation of how the U.S. treats foreigners,” Canoni said.
While Guthrie originally wrote the song as a poem, Pete Seeger later performed it as a chant. It was first turned into a song by California high school teacher Martin Hoffman. Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, The Highwaymen, and more later covered the song.
“It’s fascinating how relevant this song is in 2025,” Woody At Home producer Steve Rosenthal said. “With all the craziness that’s going on with you know who, this song has a super high level of relevance. What Woody speaks about, and how he speaks about people, and how he speaks about the whole issue of immigration, is really amazing and spot on, and it’s good for Americans to hear it. This is a good time for this song to resurface.”
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