"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 "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically wrote "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land."
In 2002, "This Land Is Your Land" was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
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Melody
Guthrie's melody was very similar to the melody of "Oh, My Loving Brother", a Baptist gospel hymn that had been recorded by the Carter Family as "When the World's On Fire" and had inspired their "Little Darlin', Pal of Mine." He used the same melody for the chorus and the verses.
Guthrie's song, however, had a different melodic structure from the hymn or the similar Carter Family melodies, and he used only the first half of those melodies in his song. The melodic structure of the presumed model(s) can be described as "ABCD"--a new melodic phrase for each of its four lines. Guthrie's structure, however, is "ABAC." In other words, Guthrie repeats the beginning of the melody (the "A" section) for his third line; the melodic phrase for his fourth line ("This land was made for you and me") is found in neither the hymn nor the Carter Family melodies.
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Original 1940 lyrics
Following are the original lyrics as composed on February 23, 1940, in Guthrie's room at the Hanover House hotel at 43rd St. and 6th Ave. (101 West 43rd St.) in New York, showing his strikeouts. The line "This land was made for you and me" does not literally appear in the manuscript at the end of each verse, but is implied by Guthrie's writing of those words at the top of the page and by his subsequent singing of the line with those words.
The original title was "God Blessed America", but it was struck out and replaced by "This Land Was Made For You & Me". It appears therefore that the original 1940 title was "This Land".
According to Joe Klein, after Guthrie composed it "he completely forgot about the song, and didn't do anything with it for another five years." (Since there is a March, 1944, recording of the song, Klein should have said "four years".)
Original 1944 lyrics
Note that this version drops the two political verses from the original: Verse four, about private property, and verse six, about hunger.
Confirmation of two other verses
A March 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the "private property" verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian who were interviewed as part of the History Channel program Save Our History - Save our Sounds. The 1944 recording with this fourth verse can be found on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.
Woodyguthrie.org has a variant:
It also has a verse:
A 1945 pamphlet which omitted the last two verses has caused some question as to whether the original song did in fact contain the full text. The original manuscript confirms both of these verses.
As with other folk songs, it was sung with different words at various times although the motives for this particular change of lyrics may involve the possible political interpretations of the verses. Recordings of Guthrie have him singing the verses with different words.
The radical verses are not often performed in schools or official functions. They can be best interpreted as a protest against the vast income inequalities that exist in the United States, and against the sufferings of millions during the Great Depression. America, Guthrie insists, was made--and could still be made--for you and me. This interpretation is consistent with such other Guthrie songs as "Pretty Boy Floyd" and Guthrie's lifelong struggle for social justice.
The song was revived in the 1960s, when several artists of the new folk movement, including Bob Dylan, The Kingston Trio, Trini Lopez, Jay and the Americans, and The New Christy Minstrels all recorded versions, inspired by its political message. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded the song in 1962 for their Moving album. The Seekers recorded the song for their 1965 album, A World of Our Own. It was performed many times by the cyclist choir, accompanied by guitarists and a wash-tub bassist, during the Wandering Wheels historic 1966 U.S. coast-to-coast bicycle trip. At the founding convention of the Canadian social democratic New Democratic Party, a version of the song was sung by the attending delegates. Bruce Springsteen first began performing it live on the River Tour in 1980, and released one such performance of it on Live/1975-85, in which he called it "about one of the most beautiful songs ever written."
The song was performed by Springsteen and Pete Seeger, accompanied by Seeger's grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger, at We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, 2009. The song was restored to the original lyrics (including the 'There was a big high wall there' and 'Nobody living can ever stop me' verses) for this performance (as per Pete Seeger's request) with the exception of a change in the end of the 'Relief Office' verse to "As they stood hungry, I stood there whistling, This land was made for you and me." The original lyrics are "As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?"
Voice actress and children's entertainer Debi Derryberry recorded a version for her musical album What A Way To Play in 2006.
In 2010, Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, the surviving members of Peter, Paul and Mary, requested that the National Organization for Marriage stop using their recording of "This Land is Your Land" at their rallies, stating in a letter that the organization's philosophy was "directly contrary to the advocacy position" held by the group.
Arlo Guthrie tells a story in concerts on occasion, of his mother returning from a dance tour of China, and reporting around the Guthrie family dinner table that at one point in the tour she was serenaded by Chinese children singing the song. Arlo says Woody was incredulous: "The Chinese? Singing "This land is your land, this land is my land? From California to the New York island?"
Variations
As is the case with many well-known songs, it has been the subject of an enormous number of variations and parodies. They include:
Versions about other countries
Many variants of the song have been recorded with lyrics adjusted to fit other countries, regions, languages, and ethnic groups. They include:
- Canadian: The Canadian folk music group The Travellers popularized their version in 1955. Their modified chorus contains the lyrics,
- Swedish: musician Mikael Wiehe has written a text in Swedish, Det här är ditt land.
- British:
- Welsh: A Welsh language version was recorded by nationalist folk singer Dafydd Iwan.
- Irish: An Irish rebel song version, often performed with "Let the People Sing", has been recorded by many artists including the Wolfe Tones and Charlie and the Bhoys.
- International: Belgian singing duo "Hanny and Adri" made a version in 1969 in Esperanto, titled "Jen Nia Mondo," literally "Behold Our World."
- Turkish: Folk singer Nuri Sesigüzel covered the song with Turkish lyrics.
- Australian: Folk singer Shirley Jacobs (1927-2015) recorded a version on her 1975 vinyl album Songs of Love and Freedom.
- Mexican-American: For the title song of their Esta Tierra Es Tuya album, the Sones de México Ensemble son group, based in Chicago, US, translated the song into Spanish, with the "Sign was painted, it said private property" lyrics slightly modified to refer to the Mexico-United States border.
Other variations
The song has been recorded by many performers over the years, ranging from American Country legend Glen Campbell, hardcore band Hated Youth, all the way to Turkish performer Nuri Sesigüzel to reggae group The Melodians.
A few other notable recordings are by:
- Peter, Paul and Mary - for their album Moving (1963)
- Bing Crosby for the album America, I Hear You Singing (1964)
- The Seekers - in the album A World of Our Own (1965)
- Connie Francis - included in her album Connie Francis and The Kids Next Door (1966)
- Tennessee Ernie Ford - recorded for his album America the Beautiful (1970)
- Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - in the album Naturally (2005)
A version called "This badge is your badge", about FC United of Manchester, was written by fan Mickey O'Farrell, and is often sung by fans at the club's matches.
In film, television, internet, books, and advertising
The song has been sung by characters in many film and television productions, including Bob Roberts (1992), Stepmom (1998), Full House, The Luck of the Irish (a Disney Channel movie), Up in the Air and by Renée Zellweger in the 2010 film My Own Love Song.
It has been parodied many times, including:
- A differently worded version of the song was featured in "Disneyland Showtime", a 1970 episode of The Wonderful World of Disney, performed by The Kids of the Kingdom with Jay and Donny Osmond. Here, the lyrics were changed to describe the many attractions and experiences at Disneyland.
- In the Home Improvement episode "Too Many Cooks" (1994), Tim refers to Al as "Al 'This Land Is' Borland".
- A 1999 episode of Friends when Joey meets a man he believes to be his "hand-twin," resulting in the lyric "This hand is my hand."
- The 1999 film Sonnenallee features a version performed by Alexander Hacke, changing the geographical references in the first verse to match those of East Germany, where the film takes place.
- The Simpsons episode "Lisa the Treehugger" (2000) with the words changed to "This log is my log, this log is your log" in reference to a runaway giant redwood tree.
- The Arthur episode "The Pride of Lakewood" with the words changed to "This school's a great school, this school's a cool school".
- The June 27, 2009 episode of A Prairie Home Companion by Arlo Guthrie as "This Song is My Song".
- In Season 4, Episode 7 of The Big Bang Theory, the Indian-born Raj Koothrappali recites the first verse of the song out for fear of deportation in an interview with an FBI agent to clarify his relationship with the United States.
- It was featured as soundtrack for the 2011 documentary The Ambassador.
- In the television series Northern Exposure (episode "Northern Hospitality" Season 5 #16), Holling Vincoeur sings a modified version with references to Canada to his wife, Shelly Vincoeur.
- In 2016, Budweiser temporarily rebranded their flagship beer "America", and included the lyrics "...from the redwood forests, to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me" on their labels.
- Lady Gaga sang a few phrases of the song at the beginning of the performance of her halftime show of the 2017 Super Bowl
- Los Angeles band Chicano Batman sang a cover for an ad for Johnnie Walker featuring both English and Spanish lyrics.
- American country artist Sam Hunt covered the song for Bright: The Album, the soundtrack to the 2017 film, Bright.
Copyright controversy
On the typescript submitted for copyright of "This Land Is Your Land", Guthrie wrote:
"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." Currently a number of different organizations claim copyright for the song. According to the Carter Family, the melody came from a tune that A.P. Carter had found and recorded with Sarah and Maybelle Carter prior to 1934 and was not original to Guthrie.
In 2004, the website JibJab hosted a parody of the song, with John Kerry and George W. Bush singing altered lyrics to comment on the US 2004 Presidential election, resulting in The Richmond Organization, a music publisher that owns the copyright to Guthrie's tune through its Ludlow Music unit, threatening legal action.
JibJab then sued to affirm their parody was Fair Use, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) acting for them. As part of their research on the case they found that the song had been first published by Woody Guthrie in 1945, although the copyright was not registered until 1956. This meant that when Ludlow applied to renew the copyright in 1984 they were 11 years too late as the song had been in the public domain since 1973 (28 years from first publication). The Richmond Organization settled with Jibjab shortly thereafter, agreeing that JibJab were free to distribute their parody. In an interview on NPR Arlo Guthrie said that he thought the parody was hilarious and he thought Woody would have loved it too. Richmond still, however, claims copyright on other versions of the song, such as those appearing in the 1956 and later publications. Legally, such claims only apply to original elements of the song that were not in the public domain version.
The Richmond Organization and Ludlow Music were sued in 2016 over their claims of copyright in a lawsuit led by Randall Newman. In a similar case, Newman previously successfully argued the song "Happy Birthday to You" was public domain.
Uses in other media
- "This Land is Your Land" is the title of Fear the Walking Dead season 3, episode 13, and Guthrie's version of the song is played during the episode.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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