Woody Guthrie

I hate a song that makes you think that you're not any good. I hate a song that makes you think you're just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are either too old or too young or too fat or too thin or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or songs that poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling.
I am out to fight these kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it's run you down, and rolled over your, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built; I am out to sing songs that will make you take pride in yourself. Woody Guthrie, 1947

Further Reading
Robbie Lieberman, My Song is My Weapon: People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture 1930-1950 (1st ed., 1989)