Cover of JOHN HARDY in 1940 - as Tom Joad, one of his Dust Bowl Ballads; written in the appartment of Alan Lomax who showed him the Carter Family version
Cover of LONESOME ROAD BLUES in 1940 - as Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad for Alan Lomax; also in film Grapes Of Wrath; Woody assumed it was written by a runaway slave; in '50 as Blowing Down This Old Dusty Road for Asch
Cover of TALKING BLUES in 1940 - same approach in Talking Dust Bowl Blues for Victor; it had first been recorded by Alan Lomax for the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress; Woody was a speaker and a good one, see his conversations with Alan on Rounder cd-set Library Of Congress Recordings; his lingo came right off the streets (inspired by Robert Lunn)
Cover of LORD DON'T YOU KNOW I HAVE NO FRIEND LIKE YOU in 1940 - again new lyrics but melodically inspired by the Carter Family as I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore, one of his Dust Bowl Ballads
Cover of TALKING BLUES in 1941 - same melody (if melody is the right word in a talking blues context) in Talking Columbia and Washington Talkin' Blues, two out of many songs written for the Bonneville Power Administration, the power company in charge of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, built to provide electricity among farmers in the whole Pacific Northwest region; folk friend Woody was charged to win every local farmer's sympathy for this innovation; electricity was brand new and unknown, so he came up with catch phrase: "it runs everywhere, cheaper than rain water"; see also: Oregon Trail and Grand Coulee Dam
Cover of STEWBALL in 1944 - own lyrics & melody; along with a more orthodox version with A.L. Lloyd, Ewan MacColl & Roy Harris
Cover of I'M NINE HUNDRED MILES FROM HOME in 1944 - as Nine Hundred Miles in Ballad Opera The Martins And The Coys (produced by Alan Lomax); in '46 also as Train #45; he also cut Grayson & Whitter's Wreck Of The Southern Old 97, Grayson & Whitter's Sally Goodin' and a 900 Miles
Cover of CAN I SLEEP IN YOUR BARN TONIGHT MISTER in 1944 - idem; in the late thirties also as Jarama Valley, scene of a massacre among antifascists during the Spanish Civil War; Ernst Busch (as In dem Tal dort am Rio Jarama), Hedy West and Wolf Biermann also cut a version
Cover of NIGHTINGALE, THE in 1945 - same tune as Aunt Mollie Jackson's in One Morning In May and of both Marvin E. Thornton and The Coon Creek Girls in The Soldier And The Lady in 1913 Massacre, which deserves its own entry (see there)