February 23, 2011

“This Land Is Your Land” – 1940

Folk singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie wrote his most famous song on this day in 1940. We know this because, when he died, his daughter went through his files and found the handwritten lyrics on a piece of paper. Some of the words and the title had been crossed out and reworked, and the piece was signed “Woody G.” and dated.

Apparently Guthrie wrote the song in response to Irving Berlin's “God Bless America.” Guthrie was sick of constantly hearing the latter song on the radio, and (according to Wikipedia), he considered the lyrics “unrealistic and complacent.” 

Here are the lyrics of "This Land Is Your Land":

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking that ribbon of highway

I saw above me that endless skyway

I saw below me that golden valley

This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

While all around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling

A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,

This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

And here is an audio sampling of Guthrie singing the song.

Did you know...?

• Various other countries enjoy different versions of the song. For example, one line in Canada's version says, “From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters...” Irish people sing, “From the hills of Kerry to the streets of Derry...” And the people of the Bahamas sing, “From Grand Bahama down to Inagua, From the Berry Islands, down to Mayaguana...”

• This song has been parodied many times. A parody is a version that spoofs something, trying for humor or even trying to ridicule an idea.

• Guthrie sometimes added different verses to his song. For example, this verse makes a statement about private property:

As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing,

That side was made for you and me.

• Perhaps the verse above explains why Guthrie was “blacklisted” by Senator Joe McCarthy, who was largely responsible for an anti-Communist “witch hunt” in the 1950s. McCarthy destroyed the lives of many people with his reckless accusations and attacks on public figures, but Guthrie just seemed to shrug off the accusation with a joke: "I ain't a Communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life."

• Guthrie didn't care about copyright, so as soon as he wrote most of his songs, he released them into the public domain. Here is the copyright notice for “This Land Is Your Land”:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

Write your own version of the song--or even a full-blown parody. You might want to choose a tune you love and write original lyrics to that song. I have written "good-bye" or birthday songs for friends with personalized lyrics--and it's lots of fun!