This Dusty Land Was Home: A Ballad of the Dust Bowl

Well now, friend, let me tell ya a tale  

Of a land gone dry and a sky gone pale.  

Where the wind blew hard and the crops laid low,  

And folks packed up with nowhere to go.

 Where the Dust Did Blow

Back in the dirty thirties, the heart of America turned to dust. The Dust Bowl stretched across five main states:  

- Oklahoma 

- Texas 

- Kansas  

- Colorado  

- New Mexico

But the wind didn’t stop at no border sign. It carried that dust clear to Nebraska, South Dakota, and even New York City, where folks wiped prairie dirt off their windowsills.

 How Many Souls Were Caught in the Storm?

They say near 2.5 million people packed up and left the Dust Bowl states. That’s more folks than you’ll find in a dozen small towns put together. They loaded jalopies with pots and pans, kids and quilts, and headed west—mostly to California, hopin’ for work and a patch of green.

Some called ’em Okies, though not all were from Oklahoma. They were just folks, same as you and me, tryin’ to find a place where the sky didn’t spit dirt and the ground didn’t crack like old leather.

 Did People Die?

Yes, they did.  

Some from dust pneumonia, their lungs filled with the same earth they once tilled.  

Some from starvation, when the crops failed and the cattle died.  

Some from despair, when the banks took the farm and the wind took the rest.

There ain’t no tidy number, but the sorrow was heavy, and the funerals were many.

 What Caused This Dusty Tragedy?

It was a mix of man and nature, dancin’ a bad two-step.

- Drought came first, dry as a preacher’s joke.

- Then came overplowin’, where farmers tore up the native grasses that held the soil down.

- Add in high winds, and you got yourself a recipe for a black blizzard.

Folks believed “rain follows the plow,” but the sky don’t take orders. When the rain stopped, the land turned to powder, and the wind did the rest.

  How Did We Fix It?

Well, we didn’t fix it overnight. But we learned.

- FDR’s New Deal rolled in with programs to help farmers.

- The Soil Conservation Service taught folks to plant windbreaks—rows of trees to slow the wind.

- They tried contour plowin’, crop rotation, and leavin’ fields fallow so the land could rest.

- They planted 200 million trees in a line from Canada to Texas, called the Shelterbelt.

And slowly, the land healed. The dust settled. The rain came back. But the memory stayed.

 Final Verse

> “So long, it’s been good to know ya,” 

> The wind sang low through the cottonwood trees. 

> But the folks who stayed and the folks who fled, 

> All carried that dust in their hearts and heads.

.I've sung this song, but I'll sing it again

Of the place that I lived on the wild windy plains

In the month called April, county called Gray
And here's what all of the people there say:

(Chorus)
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh;
So long, it's been good to know yuh
This dusty old dust is a-gettin' my home
And I got to be driftin' along

A dust storm hit, an' it hit like thunder;
It dusted us over, an' it covered us under;
Blocked out the traffic an' blocked out the sun
Straight for home all the people did run
Singin':

(Chorus)

We talked of the end of the world, and then
We'd sing a song an' then sing it again
We'd sit for an hour an' not say a word
And then these words would be heard:

(Chorus)

They hugged and kissed in that dusty old dark

They sighed and cried, hugged and kissed
Instead of marriage, they talked like this:
"Honey..."

(Chorus)

Now, the telephone rang, an' it jumped off the wall
That was the preacher, a-makin' his call
He said, "Kind friend, this may be the end;
An' you got your last chance of salvation of sin!"

The churches was jammed, and the churches was packed
An' that dusty old dust storm blowed so black
Preacher could not read a word of his text
An' he folded his specs, an' he took up collection
Said:

(Chorus)

                                                          Woody Guthrie