"Song to Woody" is one of the first ever songs written by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, released on his eponymous debut album Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan (album)

Bob Dylan is the debut album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 on Columbia Records. It features two original compositions, the rest being old folk standards, and was produced by Columbia's legendary talent scout John H...

in 1962. The song conveys Dylan's appreciation of folk legend Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...

. The tune is based on Guthrie's song "1913 Massacre

1913 Massacre

"1913 Massacre" is a topical ballad written by Woody Guthrie, and recorded and released in 1941 for Moses Asch's Folkways label. The song originally appeared on Struggle: Documentary No. 1, an album of labor songs, it was eventually re-released in 1999 on Buffalo Skinners: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 4...

". The song also makes references to icons such as Cisco Houston

Cisco Houston

Gilbert Vandine 'Cisco' Houston was an American folk singer and songwriter who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together....

, Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...

 and Leadbelly

Leadbelly

Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....

 whose music Dylan appreciated. The line "that come with the dust and are gone with the wind" quotes the line "we come with the dust and we go with the wind" in Guthrie's song "Pastures of Plenty

Pastures of Plenty

"Pastures of Plenty" is a 1941 composition by Woody Guthrie. Describing the travails and dignity of migrant workers in North America, it is evocative of the world described in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The tune is based on the ballad "Pretty Polly," a traditional English-language folk...

".

Live version of the "Song to Woody" was recorded live at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, on 16 Mar 2000 and released on the "Things Have Changed

Things Have Changed

"Things Have Changed" is a song from the film Wonder Boys, written and performed by Bob Dylan. The song was released as a single on May 1, 2000...

" CD single in 2000.

Dan Bern

Dan Bern

Dan Bern is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, novelist and painter. His music is often compared to that of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Ochs and Elvis Costello....

 makes heavy references to "Song to Woody" in his song "Talkin' Woody, Bob, Bruce & Dan Blues".

David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 also makes reference to the song in his own tribute to Dylan, "Song for Bob Dylan"

Hunky Dory

Hunky Dory is the fourth album by English singer-songwriter David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1971. It was Bowie's first release through RCA, which would be his label for the next decade...

, which begins with the line, "Now hear this, Robert Zimmerman, I wrote this song for you" mirroring Dylan's own "Hey, hey Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song."