What would Woody Guthrie think?

Sunday at my house means football...I keep hearing this commercial peddling some sort of car...and they use one of his songs.

It makes me angry as hell because I know it's a Woody Guthrie song. And it makes me wonder:

I wonder how a man that felt SO strongly about oppression that he sang out against it, and has a repetoire of music about worker's rights, corrupt politicians, class issues, oppressed people, and social justice...what would he think about a song he made up to entertain his kids, being used by a major corporation like Nissan to peddle cars to rich people.

Maybe he would do the same thing he did long ago, based on this incident from his biography: he was in the "Rainbow Room (in NYC) and gets all antsy about selling out for some bigtime show and ends up sneaking down the elevator and busting into the high-brow lobby pounding away on his guitar and singing at the top of his lungs". I'd like to think he'd crash a board meeting, walk in past shocked receptionists, get up on the round table with his dirty boots and start strumming, "It's always we rambled, that river and I, All along your green valley, I will work till I die, My land I'll defend with my life if it be, Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free"

Oh well. At least some of us are still offended by these things.