Pittsburgh Town

The song was written during a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stop on an Almanac Singers' tour; both Seeger and Guthrie were members of the band at this time.

[3] While stopped in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the group decided to play for steel workers who were in the process of unionizing.

During the second concert, Woody Guthrie impulsively started to improvise lyrics to the tune of the folk song "Crawdad Hole".

The first verse refers to Pittsburgh as a "smoky ol' town", and the third complains that the speaker does nothing more than "cough and choke" because of the steel industry's output.

Folk bands in the Pittsburgh area, such as the NewLanders, have both recorded and performed Seeger's version of the song.

"[14] However, Stephen Luttmann felt that Schuller's criticism misses the point of why Hindemith decided to the motif.