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8. The song-makers
Ella May Wiggins, Aunt Molly Jackson,
Woody Guthrie, and Joe Glazer

If anybody asks you who composed this song,
If anybody asks you who composed this song,
Tell him 'twas I, and I sing it all day long.

"In the ballad," wrote one of the most distinguished
American literary authorities, ". . . the author is of no account.
He is not even present. We do not feel sure that he ever existed." 1

When the comparatively few ballads that have come down to
us are put over against the seven centuries and more of English
folksong-making, it is not surprising that such a statement could
be made. Of the 305 ballads in Francis Child's monumental collec-
tion, only one was the work of a known composer. But all of

____________________
1 Kittredge, op. cit., p. xi.

-243-

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Book Title: American Folksongs of Protest. Contributors: John Greenway - author. Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press. Place of Publication: Philadelphia. Publication Year: 1953. Page Number: 243.
    
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