This Land Is Your Land

"This Land Is Your Land"
Song by Woody Guthrie
Published	1945
Recorded	1944
Genre	Folk
Writer(s)	Woody Guthrie

"This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940 based on an existing melody, a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire", in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio in the late 1930s he sarcastically wrote "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land."

The original lyrics to the song included this verse:

"There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me. The sign was painted, said 'Private Property.' But on the backside, it didn't say nothing. This land was made for you and me."

This verse was never released even though it was recorded by Moses Asch in 1944. This original version was basically lost, until a Smithsonian archivist, Jeff Place, heard the master version of it on the acetate record in 1997 when it was being transferred to a digital format. This transfer was made in order to preserve its history for the museum. Guthrie also wrote another protest verse that was never officially recorded but was celebrated by his own son, the folksinger Arlo Guthrie, as well as Pete Seeger. They even made a point to sing the more radical verses to "This Land Is Your Land," and they also revived verses that Guthrie wrote but never officially recorded. This verse was found by, and is still in possession of, Woody Guthrie's daughter, Nora.

"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple, by the relief office I saw my people. As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if God Blessed America for me."

Nora Guthrie mentioned that she had an idea about why these words were never recorded at the 1944 session and why the 'private property' verse that was recorded was never issued. In her own words she said, "This is the early '50s, and [U.S. Sen. Joseph] McCarthy's out there, and it was considered dangerous in many ways to record this kind of material." She went on to say that, "If my dad had done the recording, I don't think it would have meant anything to him if he was imprisoned, actually." "He was quite used to living without and having nights in prison and things like that. Like most of the things, if we're talking about my dad, it gets very complex here. So I think, you know, The Weavers originally just recorded the first three verses — which, in one way, was very, very helpful to my dad, because we had no money. So thank God that they recorded something, and our family was able to get some royalties from that." Eventually, Guthrie lost his ability to play guitar and his ability to sing but he continued to write and to inspire a younger generation of performers, including Bob Dylan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, and the band Wilco.

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Wikipedia