"This Land Is Your Land" is the thirteenth episode of the third season of the post-apocalyptic horror television series Fear the Walking Dead, which aired on AMC on October 1, 2017. 4.3 out of 5 stars 36 ratings. “In the context of America, a nation-state built by settler colonialism, Woody Guthrie’s protest anthem exemplifies the particular blind spot that Americans have in regard to Natives: American patriotism erases us, even if it comes in the form of a leftist protest song. Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 on a traditional melody, possibly a hymn. In January 2017, protesters at New York’s JFK airport sang This Land Is Your Land to passengers detained under President Trump’s new travel ban. Javascript is required to view shouts on this page. While every iteration of the song celebrates inclusion and equality, the 1944 recording excludes the relief office verse and the 1951 version misses out both of the radical verses, as does the 1945 pamphlet. Certainly not Native Americans. It was sung during the presidential campaigns of Democrats George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984, as well as that of Mondale’s opponent Ronald Reagan. More More. Guthrie expert Will Kaufman points out that the singer did occasionally refer to how Native Americans had been bullied and swindled out of their land – indeed, his own father secured some of his farmland that way. Born in Oklahoma in 1912, Woody Guthrie was a natural entertainer who was drawn to the vagabond life (Credit: Getty Images). Its lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 on a tr…, "This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Because this land ‘was’ our land.”. For decades, "This Land Is Your Land" been a staple of kindergarten classrooms "from California to the New York island," as the lyrics go. That spring alone, everything changed. THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND The philosopher John Locke believes that individuals have certain rights—to life, liberty, and property—which were given to us as human beings in the “the state of nature,” a time before government and laws were created. This Land Is Your Land is a living song: a fluid text which can accommodate multiple visions of America and Americans. “He said, ‘Y’know, this all belongs to us. In the context of the Trump administration, which proposes a narrow, walled-off definition of the US, its radical generosity becomes unignorable and essential. Like his hero Walt Whitman, Guthrie aspired to embody all Americans. Amazingly, Guthrie didn’t understand what he had on his hands. Select Your Cookie Preferences. This Land is Your Land. It helped that Guthrie, no nightingale himself, had written a song that anyone could sing. Its lyrics were written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, based on a melody that already existed. One of the top Google searches for This Land Is Your Land is a complicated question: “Is This Land is Your Land a communist song?” Woody had a quip for that: “I ain’t a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life.” While it’s true that he never joined the American Communist Party (CPUSA), during 1938 and 1939 he played many fundraisers and wrote a column for the People’s World newspaper. Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen sang This Land is Your Land at President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 (Credit: Getty Images). He appeared on stage at New York’s first serious folk music showcase, where he met the folk song collector Alan Lomax and a young singer named Pete Seeger. He ended each line with “God blessed America for me” but seems to have had second thoughts, crossing out each refrain and changing the title to This Land. T…, Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912–October 3, 1967) was an American songwriter and, This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. In the Netflix documentary Knock Down the House, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tearfully recalls her late father showing her the sights of Washington DC when she was five years old. Whereas Berlin’s brief lyric sketches the US landscape in two lines (“From the mountains to the prairies/ To the oceans white with foam”), Guthrie’s verses encompass forests, valleys, deserts, wheat fields, highways and small towns – the terrain he might have missed while cooped up in a seedy hotel room in a strange city. Nobody living can make me turn back This land was made for you and me. This Land Is Your Land. G C G This land is your land, this land is my land D G From California to the New York Island G7 C G From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters D7 G This land was made for you and me. Alice laughs incredulously. In 1937 he moved to Los Angeles, where he became a minor local celebrity as a protest singer and radio host. In 2002, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, "This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. In fact “This Land Is Your Land” was originally named, in an act of sarcasm, “God Bless America for Me”. Does This Land Is Your Land’s democratic message also sin by omission? Details: See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions. And the song was based on an even older Baptist hymn called “Oh, My Loving Brother”. “Oh no, no, no. The tempo also quickened, as the song was a useful quickstep tune. He began writing what would become his 1943 memoir, Bound for Glory. And he recorded his Lomax-produced debut album, Dust Bowl Ballads. His daughter Nora later said that he “learned socialism on the highways of America”. The meaning of “you and me” really depends on who’s singing it. Sheet music to the Woody Guthrie song "This Land Is Your Land" Items portrayed in this file depicts. A few months later, six young immigrant musicians combined elements of their own national anthems with Guthrie’s song to create This Land/Our Land. "This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Lady Gaga pointedly combined it with God Bless America in her 2017 Super Bowl performance, while Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine sang it at the Occupy Wall Street protest camp in 2011. This Land Is Not Your Land A brief history of the US government appropriating farmland from people of color. The next verse introduces a note of doubt to the song’s optimistic vision by describing a common scene from the Great Depression: One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steepleBy the relief office I saw my people –As they stood there hungry,I stood there wondering if[This land was made for you and me.]. The first known professionally printed publication was in 1956 by Ludlow Music. When the singer Kate Smith debuted it on her radio show on 11 November 1938 (the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day), it was instantly beloved, though not by Guthrie. This Land Is Your Land has since become immeasurably famous, woven deep into the fabric of US culture. “My blood beats Spanish and my breath burns Indian and my soul boils negro,” he wrote in an unpublished 1950 poem. The robustly cheerful melody (taken from the gospel hymn When the World’s on Fire) was perfect for a protest march, picket line, festival or classroom. That pivotal folk concert was called the Grapes of Wrath Evening and Steinbeck himself praised Guthrie in the foreword for Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People: “He sings the songs of the people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people.”. After his show was cancelled, he decided to try his luck in New York, arriving in the city in February 1940. -       How The Age of Innocence defined its era. inception. Preview Preview: Special | 30s. Like Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, it has no single definitive version. Andrea Guzman and Piper McDaniel May+June 2021 Issue Like the country it celebrates, this song never sits still. His father Charley was a landlord with political aspirations, but fate did not favour the Guthries. Woody Guthrie loosely based the melody on another tune entitled “When the World’s on Fire” by The Carter Family, a folk group from the early-20 th century. The CPUSA threw its support behind President Roosevelt’s New Deal, claiming: “Communism is 20th Century Americanism.” Guthrie, a quasi-communist who went on to write patriotic songs for Roosevelt’s Bonneville Power Administration, embodied that bridge-building spirit, as did This Land Is Your Land. While recordings by Bing Crosby and Peter, Paul and Mary were abbreviated, Pete Seeger and Guthrie’s son Arlo always performed the radical verses, lest they be forgotten. In the penultimate episode, Alice attends the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston with a view to sabotaging its platform, but a mysterious white pill melts her defences and sends her on a dream-like journey through the venue. Even though he acquired a wife and child in Pampa, he was drawn to the vagabond life, walking, hitching and boxcar-riding through the American West, and writing songs about the shattered lives he encountered. This is our government. 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