Woodie Guthrie - American Hero

[haribo1]

The influence of Woodie was possibly the single most important musician in US history, just ask Bob Dylan. I've learned from my wife, who is a US citizen that it was common to sing 'This Land Is your Land' in grade school. The version used is revisionist because Woodie was, if not a communist, then certainly a socialist and thus, found little work in the McCarthy era.

Let us see the WHOLE of the lyrics to his most famous songs, the version printed in Europe (and very occasionally in the US(,

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
Saying this land was made for you and me.

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.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side 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.

It occurs to me that this is not simply a song engaging people on the pure wonder of the US, but rather a comparison of what the land is like physically and how it's government and rich elite make a seperate land for themselves.

He was 30 years ahead of the modern anti-fascist movement as this image taken in 1938 shows.

Revisionism - give it long enough and Korea, Vietnam & Iraq will become victories, or at least not outright losses. Choose your history carefully.

If people would care to add by cut & pasting and adding on, that would be great.

Oh, and Billy Bragg did an album of songs Woody wrote but couldn't sing/play because of his illness (Huntingdons Disease I think). Let's really find out about this vital person in US history.

As he would put it 'What can war do that peace can't do better?'

 

[johanneschimpo]

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me

Whoa. We never sang these two verses in school. They definitely give the song a very different dynamic (especially the first one); I can see why they wouldn't have 8 year old kids singing that part.

I don't know what more to add, but thanks for enlightening me, Haribo.