Billy Bragg and Wilco set lyrics by Woody Guthrie that he never recorded, chosen from more than a thousand he left without tunes. Guthrie's daughter Nora asked Bragg to write the music, and he brought in Wilco; rather than imitate Guthrie, they wrote their own folk-rock and country tunes, in "California Stars", "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key", "Christ for President" and "Walt Whitman's Niece". The title, from one of his songs, is the Coney Island street where he lived.