‘Old Man Trump’: how Woody Guthrie’s final songs took aim at the president’s flagrantly racist father
Right now, all over the world, folk singers are writing songs about Donald Trump. Protest music is the very foundation of the genre, and as Trump’s second presidential run gets underway with bangs of controversy, he’s given songwriters plenty to say. But 70 years ago, Woody Guthrie was rallying against another Trump. It seems the battle between the artist and that one wealthy, unscrupulous family never truly ends—it only changes.
Sure, plenty of people support Donald Trump—otherwise, he wouldn’t have managed to get re-elected after being impeached and indicted on federal charges. But to many, he has become the global face of evil. As he tears at the rights of trans people, enforces aggressive anti-immigration policies, attempts to dismantle constitutional rights for those born in the US, attacks women’s access to reproductive healthcare, orchestrates tariff wars, and even expresses interest in having Gaza, he has fully embraced the image of a dictator.
So worldwide, protest writers have a lot of material to work with when it comes to writing songs fighting for age and condemning the president. They sit in a grand tradition and a lineage of writers who have done the same, using their words and music against leaders and the establishment in the hopes that art could bring about a better world or at least give people an anthem to sing as they fight for it.
Seven decades ago, Woody Guthrie was busy doing just that, dedicating his entire career and life to the cause. Across his discography, his words dealt with all kinds of topics, from social injustices to huge, nuanced issues of toxic nationalism, fascism, and socialism. Sometimes, they were broad messages for the world to sing, but in the case of this song, they were specific and pointed at one person.
‘Old Man Trump’ is a savage, pointed attack on Fred Trump, Donald Trump’s father. It seems ignorance truly runs in the family, as Fred was sued by the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for racial discrimination, accused of refusing to rent apartments or housing to Black tenants—an infringement of the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
During their investigation, one former employee testified that a code, which he said was used throughout the Brooklyn branch of the company, called certain candidates ‘low lives’, referring to “Blacks, Puerto Ricans, apparent drug users, or any other type of undesirable applicant”.
Guthrie, a Brooklyn resident, saw it in action. In 1950, he actually signed a lease at the Beach Haven apartment complex, which was owned by Trump, so he witnessed it first-hand. In the track, he calls the crook landlord out by name, singing, “I suppose Old Man Trump knows / Just how much / Racial Hate / He stirred up / In the bloodpot of human hearts / When he drawed / That colour line / Here at his Beach Haven family project.”
It wouldn’t be the only time Guthrie would sing about Trump. In one unreleased version of ‘Ain’t Got No Home’, he sings, “Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower / Where no Black folks come to roam / No, no, Old Man Trump! / Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!”
All Guthrie ever wanted was a world of fairness, equality and kindness. He wanted to see his building bustling with life, writing in his notepad, “I welcome you here to live. I welcome you and your man both here to Beach Haven to love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place to get pregnant and to have your kids raised in. I’m yelling out my own welcome to you.”
It’s yet another suggestion that human history might just be cyclical.
