Pastures of Plenty, by Woody Guthrie.
This song, like most Woody Guthrie songs, does a great job of storytelling about water rights. And dams. And migration. Obviously, you’ve read Grapes of Wrath! Throw Chinatown in there, and maybe much more recent stories about the almond and fruit tree business, and how water flows (or doesn’t) into it.
Do Re Mi by Woody Guthrie.
Believe it or not, this is another one I first heard on that Nanci Griffith cover album. It didn’t take that many years for me to hit a nice solid Woody Guthrie (ahem, Boodie Guppie, if you read that one book of Bob Dylan poetry) phase.
This meant something specific during the years we lived in California, mostly as grad students and/or bartenders and/or early-career journalists and/or newlyweds and/or new parents.
Raw and unedited, or mixed, as is obvious, and I flub the beginning and the ending terribly, but if this were perfect, we could afford to live in California. 😉