This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie

And now for a song that everyone probably knows the chorus to.  This Land is Your Land is one of those songs that feels like it's been around forever, a traditional folk tune that no one really knows where it came from - but we do know where it came from, and that was the mind of Woodrow Wilson 'Woody' Guthrie (with a little help from our friends the Carter Family).  Woody was a behemoth of American folk music and a mammoth influence on such greats as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and perpetual nice guy Pete Seeger.  Where Seeger wrote on his banjo 'This marchine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender', Guthrie had a placard on his guitar which said 'This machine kills fascists'.  Guthrie was born in a small town in Oklahoma and wrote many songs of his experiences growing up in the dust bowl during the Great Depression.  To the surprise of no one he was associated with many communist sympathizing groups, although was never a card carrying member of any of them.  Guthrie was married 3 times and had 8 children, one of which is also a famous folk musician Arlo Guthrie.  Unfortunately, Woody had inhereted Huntington's disease (a neurodegenerative disorder that affects muscle control and leads to mental decline) from his mother and passed away in 1967 at the age of 55.

Guthrie originally wrote This Land is Your Land in 1944 as an antithesis of the recently released 'God Bless America', which he saw as inane.  He borrowed the melody of the song from a Carter Family tune 'Little Darin', Pal 'o Mine' and wrote his own lyrics.  This was something that he apparently did quite often to increase the popularity of his songs, and seeing as he wrote what is known as a scathing protest song during a time when his country was at war, he put it into a booklet with a few other folk tunes that he had written.  The song became a hit with people who were struggling economically and financially during that time and eventually became a protest anthem around the world, the lyrics being adapted for India and Canada (!)  Anyway, the song continues to be a big deal, as Bruce Springsteen and perpetual nice guy Pete Seeger sang it for Barack Obama's 2009 Presidential inaugauration. 

Holly:

This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie): This song is simple, and is played and sung without any ornamentation or frills, but it’s become a big cornerstone in American music history. Another song that has more historical than musical importance in my opinion. The guitar playing and singing are both fine on this recording, but nothing special. The fact that it was a protest song is what has given it the staying power over the years. I’ve never felt a particular attachment to this song, and I still don’t. 2.5/5

Kelly:

Yeah, again I agree with my sister on this one - a song heavy on historical importance and light on musical importance.  But maybe had it not been such a catchy melody, it wouldn't have caught on?  But we can thank the Carters for that (sorry Woody).  For some reason this song reminds me of my early childhood, maybe there's a Raffi version?  Anyway, Guthrie's voice sounds exactly like you would expect someone with the name Woody Guthrie to sound like.  It's pretty simple, just him and his guitar, but that's the set of for a lot of folk music, as it was meant for people to join in and sing together.  I can imagine that this song is relatively poweful when you have a bunch of folksters gathered at a park in New York with their guitars and banjos and hammered dulcimers singing their hearts out, but poor ol' Woody by himself just doesn't make the cut for me.  3/5

This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie

And just for fun, here's the first verse of the Canadian version:

This land is your land, This land is my land,

From Bonavista, to Vancouver Island

From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters,

This land was made for you and me.