So Long, It's Been Good to Know You

Background information: This song was written in the mid 1930's while Woody Guthrie was still in his early 20's. What he wrote was his observations of the Dust Bowl (Elzey, 2015). Woody is quoted saying this about this ballad: "There on the Texas plains right in the dead center of the dust bowl, with the oil boom over and the wheat blowed out and the hard-working people just stumbling about, bothered with mortgages, debts, bills, sickness, worries of every blowing kind, I seen there was plenty to make up songs about" (Jackson, 2016).

The tune for the verse was borrowed from Carson Robison's "Ballad of Billy the Kid", but the chorus was original music written by Guthrie (chimesoffreedom, 2016).

Click the button below to download the sheet music

Video recording

Lesson Plans

Idea #1

-Ask students to close and cover their eyes while you perform this ballad to them for the first time. Sing just the second verse.

-Use this experience as an introduction to a discussion about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and the conditions that people at that time had to deal with. Explain that visibility was so limited at times that it was like having your eyes closed.

-Here are a few links for background information on the Dust Bowl:

-The National Drought Mitigation Center - https://drought.unl.edu/dustbowl/ - This site includes information, timelines, and pictures about what lead up to the Dust Bowl, the conditions during it, and the effect it had on the land.

-The Library of Congress - https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/dust-bowl/ - This contains a shorter summary of the Dust Bowl and a number of historical artifacts that include photos and documents relating to the event.

Idea #2

-The accompaniment to this song only includes three chords (I, IV, and V7), and can be played by any appropriate instrument.

Idea #3

-If being used for solfege reasons, the tone set is drmfsl d'

Idea #4

-When teaching the concept of the fermata, there are two good examples in this ballad that can be used. They are marked in the sheet music.