Millard Lampell continued improving and created the second verse of the song from that point. The song's entire body came out of this jam session. During the second concert, Woody Guthrie impulsively started to improvise lyrics to the tune of the folk song ' Crawdad Hole'. They played two nights of concerts in a steel patch, spending the night there in a cockroach-infested hotel. While stopped in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the group decided to play for steel workers who were in the process of unionizing. The $250 that they were paid was used to purchase a 1932 Buick in which they traveled on their subsequent tour. According to the liner notes of Pete Seeger's American Industrial Ballads, originally released in 1956, on July 7, 1941, the group recorded fourteen songs for a small record label in New Jersey. Several historians trace 'Pittsburgh Town' to the Almanac Singers' 1941 national tour. There are several stories behind the origin of the song. In the time since, environmental legislation has reduced the pollution problem that plagued Pittsburgh because of this, the song's mentions of pollution in Pittsburgh have been sometimes been replaced with verses extolling the city. The song speaks of the labor and environmental problems that the city was facing in 1941, when the song was written. 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.

' Pittsburgh Town', sometimes titled as ' Pittsburgh' or ' Pittsburgh is a Great Old Town', is a folk song written by Woody Guthrie and originally recorded by Pete Seeger.

Woody guthrie pete seeger