Woody Guthrie was never too vague about his stance on fascism, starting with the famous phrase "This Machine Kills Fascists" written on his guitars.
"All You Fascists Bound To Lose" is a song that takes this bluntness to a lyrical level, to the point where it hardly needs any introduction.
I’m gonna tell you fascists
You may be surprised
The people in this world
Are getting organized
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose
Race hatred cannot stop us
This one thing we know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow
And greed has got to go
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose.
All of you fascists bound to lose:
I said, all of you fascists bound to lose:
Yes sir, all of you fascists bound to lose:
You’re bound to lose! You fascists:
Bound to lose!
People of every color
Marching side to side
Marching ‘cross these fields
Where a million fascists dies
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose!
I’m going into this battle
And take my union gun
We’ll end this world of slavery
Before this battle’s won
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose!
What's pretty cool about All You Fascists is that Guthrie's BBC recording was lost for a really long time, so we thought we were just left with his lyrics. When Billy Bragg teamed up with Wilco to put music to unreleased Guthrie songs in the late 90s, nobody knew that the Guthrie recording still existed. The Wilco/Bragg version of the song is therefore recorded not as a cover, but as a completely original composition by musicians who had not had a chance to listen to Guthrie's original.