"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.
—Written by Guthrie in the late 1930s on a songbook distributed to listeners of his Los Angeles radio show Woody and Lefty Lou, who wanted the words to his recordings.[33]"
