Welcome to the New Depression: A New Song by Darryl Holter

To write a song about the state of today’s economy I thought it would be useful to look at how other songwriters wrote about the Great Depression in the 1930s. The famous Carter Family had a very popular song called “No Depression in Heaven”. It reflected the fears of many religious leaders and their followers that the Depression might be a signal that the end of the world was coming, that the “latter days” had arrived and we would soon be facing the final Day of Judgment.

The lyrics are very specific:

Out here the hearts of men are fading
These are latter days we know
The Great Depression now is spreading
God’s Word declared it must be so

I’m going where there’s no Depression
To a better land that’s free from care
I’ll leave this world of toil and trouble
My home’s in heaven, I’m going there

I wanted to write about the current state of the American economy but,
in the spirit of Woody Guthrie, present it as an “answer song”– one
that responds to an older song by offering a different perspective.

– DH

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Darryl Holter is described as an original taste of Americana music, drawing from country, blues and folk traditions. He is also a archival researcher and writer on Woody Guthrie. Read more at www.darrylholter.com