This Land Is Your Land
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What is the song "This Land Is Your Land"?
"This Land Is Your Land" was written by Woody Guthrie on February 23, 1940, in response to Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America". Guthrie borrowed the melody from a gospel song by the Carter Family, "When the World’s on Fire".
Initially titled "God Blessed America for Me," Guthrie's song included verses critical of American life, addressing private property and hunger during the Depression. These verses were later excluded from many recordings but were sung by artists like Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger to preserve their message.
The song gained popularity in the 1950s when it was licensed to school music textbooks for a dollar, becoming a staple in sing-alongs. "This Land Is Your Land" has been covered by numerous artists across genres and added to the U.S. Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2002. While it has served as an expression of protest and patriotism, some argue that its lyrics do not fully consider Indigenous experiences.
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Who wrote and originally sang "This Land Is Your Land"?
Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land Is Your Land" in 1940 as a response to Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America," which he felt presented an overly positive view of the country. Guthrie borrowed the melody from a gospel song by the Carter Family, "When the World’s on Fire".
Guthrie debuted the song on his radio show in 1944. "This Land Is Your Land" grew in popularity in the early 1950s and was performed by other folk musicians, such as the Wayfarers, Glenn Yarbrough, and the Weavers.
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What is the main message of the song?
"This Land Is Your Land," penned by Woody Guthrie, conveys a message of inclusion and equality. Written in 1940 as a response to Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America", Guthrie's song reflects his experience of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, offering a critical view of America. The song asserts that the country's land belongs to everyone, regardless of economic status. Though initially including verses addressing private property and hunger, which were later omitted, the song’s enduring message promotes freedom and unity, capturing the ideal that the land was made for all people. Its popularity grew in the 1950s, becoming a staple in schools and gatherings, and it remains an expression of both protest and patriotism.
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When was "This Land Is Your Land" written, and why?
Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land Is Your Land" on February 23, 1940, shortly after arriving in New York City. He wrote the song as a critical response to Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America" (1938), which Guthrie felt painted an overly positive picture of a country that he knew to be much more complex due to his experiences with family tragedies, the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl.
Guthrie borrowed the melody from a gospel song by the Carter Family, "When the World’s on Fire" (1930). The lyrics were first published in 1945 in the pamphlet Ten of Woody Guthrie’s Songs. The song gained popularity in the early 1950s when Guthrie’s publisher licensed it to school music textbooks for a dollar.
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How does the song reflect American history or culture?
"This Land Is Your Land," penned by Woody Guthrie in 1940, mirrors American history and culture through its themes of inclusion and equality.
Guthrie's personal experiences during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl influenced the song, which was initially a critical response to "God Bless America," as Guthrie intended to depict a more realistic view of the country. The song gained popularity in the 1950s, becoming a staple in classrooms and sing-alongs. It has served as both a patriotic anthem and a protest song, performed at presidential inaugurations and demonstrations alike. Though some find that the song doesn't consider Indigenous experiences, it remains a significant expression of American ideals.
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Why is "This Land Is Your Land" considered important in American folk music?
"This Land Is Your Land" is important in American folk music because of its themes of inclusion and equality. Woody Guthrie wrote it in 1940 as a response to Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America," which he felt presented an unrealistic view of the country.
The song gained popularity in the early 1950s when it was included in school music textbooks. It became a staple at sing-alongs and was embraced as both a protest song and a patriotic anthem. The U.S. Library of Congress added the 1944 recording to the National Recording Registry in 2002, recognizing its cultural and historical significance.
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This Land Is Your Land, popular song written by American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie. It has been embraced as a protest song and as an alternative patriotic anthem for the United States because of its themes of inclusion and equality.
Background and composition
Guthrie penned the lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land” in a cheap hotel named the Hanover House on February 23, 1940, shortly after he arrived in New York City. Guthrie had grown up in Oklahoma, where his early life had been marked by family tragedies, the economic hardship of the Great Depression, and drought and dust storms that afflicted the region during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. He spent several years “roaming and rambling” parts of the United States, particularly Texas and California, before heading east. He wrote “This Land Is Your Land” as a critical response to Irving Berlin’s immensely popular “God Bless America” (1938), which irritated the populist-minded Guthrie with what he considered to be a rosy picture of a country that he knew from experience to be far more complicated. For a tune, Guthrie borrowed the melody of a gospel song by the Carter Family, “When the World’s on Fire” (1930).
Lost verses
The 1940 version of Guthrie’s song was different from that which became popular. To begin with, it was not titled “This Land Is Your Land” but “God Blessed America for Me,” and each verse ended with that line. Guthrie changed both the title and repeating line in a later draft. Befitting the song’s origin as a retort to “God Bless America,” Guthrie initially included two verses that could be read as critical of life in the United States. The first of these suggests that the country’s land belongs to everybody:
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Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property.
But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing—
God blessed America for me.
The second of these verses addresses hunger, a common experience during the Depression:
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the relief office I saw my people—
As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me.
When Guthrie debuted “This Land Is Your Land” on his weekly radio show in December 1944, these two verses, expressing what some regarded as radical political views, had been excised. (They were missing as well from the version that was released by Folkways Records in 1951.) However, Guthrie’s first known recording of “This Land Is Your Land,” which occurred in April 1944, included the verse about private property, though this version was not discovered until 1997 by archivist Jeff Place of the Smithsonian Institution.
The lyrics for “This Land Is Your Land” were first published in 1945 in the pamphlet Ten of Woody Guthrie’s Songs. The pamphlet version showed the title as “This Land” and excluded the two political verses, but it featured a new verse at the song’s end that conveyed Guthrie’s ideal of freedom:
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking my freedom highway.
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
Popularity and legacy
“This Land Is Your Land” did not become well known until the early 1950s, when Guthrie’s publisher, Howie Richmond, began licensing folk songs in his catalog to school music textbooks. To entice publishers, the license for the song was offered for just a dollar, a tactic that paid off handsomely. “This Land Is Your Land” became a patriotic staple of sing-alongs at campsites, in classrooms, and among other small singing groups across the country. As Guthrie’s friend and frequent collaborator Pete Seeger told National Public Radio (NPR) in 2019, “That song was never on the hit parade. It was never played on the radio. It was never played on TV. It was a nothing of a song as far as the commercial world was concerned. But practically everybody in America knew this song.”
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In the mid-1950s other folk musicians began recording the song, such as the Wayfarers, Glenn Yarbrough, and the Weavers. Eventually, it was covered or performed by dozens of well-known acts representing many different music genres, including Bing Crosby, Peter, Paul and Mary, Odetta, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, the Staple Singers, Wanda Jackson, Johnny Cash, the Spinners, Bruce Springsteen, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine), and Jennifer Lopez.
In 2002 the U.S. Library of Congress added the 1944 recording of “This Land Is Your Land” to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Guthrie’s song has remained popular as an expression of both protest and patriotism and has been performed at such occasions as U.S. presidential inaugurations, Independence Day celebrations, demonstrations against economic inequality and immigration bans, and sports events. It has also been proposed as an alternative American national anthem to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which some people consider too difficult to sing and militaristic. But this suggestion has been rejected by Guthrie’s family. As Guthrie’s daughter Nora explained to NPR in 2019, the song “belongs to the people—not the government.”
Controversies
The political verses of “This Land Is Your Land” did not feature in many of these recordings, although Guthrie’s son Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger were among the artists who insisted on singing them to keep them from being forgotten. During the folk revival and civil rights movement of the 1960s, the song regained its political dimension. Since it was easily singable and most people knew the words, activists performed it during marches and at picket lines. However, some Native people have argued that the song’s lyrics do not adequately take Indigenous experience into consideration and unintentionally “evoke Manifest Destiny and expansionism.” This “blind spot” in the song, as some see it, has led a few Native activists to write their own versions in response. Other Native performers, such as Anishinaabe songwriter and musician Keith Secola and the Cherokee National Youth Choir, have recorded Guthrie’s song in their native languages.