Because the way I heard it is now a book of the same name and because that book is now a New York Times best seller. He said with great modesty, I am using the incredibly valuable space in front of the store you're about to here to invite you to pick up a copy for yourself. Now it is tempting to point to the many hundreds of five star reviews that the way I heard it has so far received, but that feels too self congratulatory. So, let's just say, let's just. Play the way I heard it makes a heck of a Christmas present. Would you can order right now at micro dot, com book? That's my krowd dot com book. Honestly, if you like the podcast you're going to love the book and if you'd like an autographed copy for Christmas, perhaps we still have a few of those left at micro dot com book. Having said that, that's the way I heard it

Once upon a time when America Soundtrack was flooded with folk songs and the music of the day featured something called a melody are country was united by a cheerful, an unforgettable refrain, a joyful turn that inspired regular folks from sea. The shining see no other melody before or since the song was called when the world's on fire and I'm pretty sure, You know the melody by heart, but what about the words of my love and mother? when the world's on fire. Don't you want gods, bosom to be her pillow dark lyrics for such a happy. Doing so one day, a good natured man with a guitar and a smile and his eyes wrote some new words to accompany that melody, and now that man was engulfed in flames. This time the fault was his

He had set the gas can too near to the camp fire and when it exploded with a gentle, both the flames had leaped up like a living thing and covered his rights leave seconds later. He was on the ground trying to smother the flames he fight really succeeded, is ruined. Arm now hung limply at his side, blistered and useless. He would never pick up a guitar again if you're inclined to believe and curses The ultimate fate of this legendary musician will confirm your inclination when he was just a boy. He. Watched his family's home, burned to the ground a few years later, his little sister Clara got too close to an open flame, her clothes caught fire are killing or twelve years later, his mother Loving woman, who named him after an american president, descended into madness. Hurled a kerosene lab at his brother John.

Only survive, but he was burned horribly from his chin to his naval and almost exam Thirdly, twenty years after that tragedy came the worst fire of all a short. Market in an ATM radio caused a spark. The spark ignited his daughters bedsheets. While she lay sleeping and poor little Kay the sweet dancing child, he called stack, abounds, died in flames. No one can say if his dementia was preceded by that final conflagration or triggered by it, but either way the man play by fire was doomed to follow his mother into the abyss of madness. When the cops founded shuffling down the highway. They didn't see the legendary musician whose songs had given hope to so many they did here, the legendary voice forever linked to the common man.

They just solemn forty, three year old, Hobo lost and day used and muttering the very words he had changed all those years ago. Oh my love and mother, when the world's on fire dont, you want gods, bosom to be your pillow In many ways, flame and fame are not so different. Both can arrive in a flash, both can consume you and both can vanish in a blink. By the time he wrote when the world's on fire, Ap Carter was already famous. Thanks to country classics like? Will the circle be unbroken and keep on the sunny side? Carter was Household name and his songs were known to millions, but his most famous melody indoors today because a man plagued by fire changed the words he couldn't bear to sing

oh my love and mother, when the world's on fire. Don't you want? God bosom to be your pay low with newly makes a big Carter's. Original melody would catch fire like no other song in the history of american music from California to the New York Island. The crowds couldn't get enough, and night. The entire country was singing along and falling in love with the idea of it. This land was made for you and me in life. There was nothing he could do to quench the flames, but with one song he finally put the fire out. That's the legacy of the man plagued by fire a regular guy named in honour of our twenty Eightth President Woodrow Wilson, a guy you might

remember as Woody Woody Wilson Guthrie anyway. That's the way I heard.