Folk History: Woody Guthrie and the CIO Ladies Auxiliary

On one of the Pete Seeger performances I snagged, he tells a pretty funny story.

Pete Seeger is one of the great folk legends. A great musician and protest singer in his own right, he played with Woody Guthrie, who is probably one of the most famous folk singers of all time, and widely considered to be the father of protest music. They played together with the Almanac Singers, who were one of the most important groups of the early 60s. Blacklisted for his political views in the McCarthy era, he is now one of the last of the oldschool folk singers, and in his later years toured singing folk songs from around the world.

Woody Guthrie had very strong ties with the CIO, and at one point the Ladies Auxiliary came to him and asked him to write a song for them. Woody said: "Well, we already gave you Union Maid, what more do you want?" they replied "Well, union maid isnt exactly dignified (it being a parody of a particularily bawdy song of the time), and more importantly, it doesnt have the words "Ladies Auxiliary" in the chorus"

Well, Woody had written many songs in his career. One of his most famous childrens songs he wrote for his daughter, Cathy. It consisted of five or six verses along the lines of:

"Oh mama oh mama, come wash my face,
Come wash my face, come wash my face,
Oh mama oh mama, come wash my face,
Make it nice and clean-oh!"

After hearing the request of the ladies auxiliary, he picked up his guitar, and off the top of his head started singing:

"Oh, the Ladies' Auxiliary is a good auxiliary.
It's the best auxiliary that you ever did see.
If you need an auxiliary, see the Ladies' Auxiliary.
It's the Ladies' Auxiliary"

to the same tune he used for clean-oh.

Whats even funnier is while Ladies' Auxiliary is on many Woody Guthrie compilations, Clean-o is hardly found.