Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land?wprov=sfti1#

Mainstream renditions usually leave out the verses about private property and public assistance

I remember in high school my band teacher (who was/is perhaps the biggest Trump supporter in the tristate area) played a YouTube video of this song during our Veterans Day program. That was the first time I heard the whole song, and the irony was not lost on me.

Well, maybe not your land... /s

Guthrie would have opinions. Too bad you couldn't also show other songs of his, like Farmer-Labor Train and All You Fascists

He's the Woody we need right now

I roamed and rambled, and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

All around me a voice was a-sounding

This land was made for you and me

There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me

Sign was painted, said "Private Property"

But on the back side, it didn't say nothing

This land was made for you and me

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people

By the relief office, I seen my people

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking

Is this land made for you and me?

They need to bring these verses back in the mainstream renditions of the song, but it's obvious why they don't.

If you want to hear it

We used to have to sing that, and "Oh Canada" every morning at school when I was little, although we had our own rendition...

This land Is my land and only my land,

I've got a shotgun and you don't got one,

So if you don't get off I'll blow your head off,

This land is mine and only mine,

I've had a hard time separating this song from the idea of manifest destiny ever since Jack Layton famously performed it on the campaign trail and faced that criticism. I realise that I'm probably missing the point, and so were the people who "translated" it to 'canadian'.

15 years later I now hear it as the realization that the american dream is a lie. North America was colonized and the colonizers were promised all of its riches and freedom from serfdom. But there are still no trespassing signs, and people are still dependent on religious and state aid, despite the vast abundance.

I think the song ends with him being like "well fuck you I'm going after that freedom anyways" which doesn't quite match my interpretation of the lyrics before that part, but we see the world differently in the current era and I'm not sure how much Guthrie might have known about colonialism.

https://videos.shmalls.pw/w/pEgeXTTB6zYaJ7VDfDLGE6

https://youtu.be/QQWhnqtBpg0

When I was in grade shcool in California in the 70s, we were forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of class each day (very common in school and government functions across the USA at the time), but also in my school, we would follow the pledge with the whole class singing a verse of This Land is your Land. I didn't understand or appreciate this until many years later.

Just last night I introduced my partner to the music of Woody's son, Arlo Guthrie. They had never heard Arlo's famous anti-draft/anti-police song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree." I was shocked; I grew up with WAMC playing the song every Thanksgiving.

I learned this this morning when this song came on during my drive to work.

Being 7 or 8 when 9/11 happened, my school memories include a lot of learning patriotic songs to be sung at flag ceremonies and stuff. I had no concept at all that there could be different versions of them

I remember it as:

“…this land was made for only me”.

Sign was painted, said "Private Property" > But on the back side, it didn't say nothing

Genius line. It says so much, so simply. God I wish I could write like this man

You just reminded me of the time my friends and I played that song on the jukebox of a small town bar. The looks we got when it kept going for 20 minutes was great.

One of my favorite versions of This Land by Las Cafeteras (just because I'm sure it upsets certain folks to hear Latinos singing the song)
https://youtu.be/dS0OQ9HP3Oo

That could be too, the 70's was a looong time ago. I'd imagine there's more than a few variations too

They make you sing it everywhere.

I like the WKUK version.

I just saw Gillian Welch and David Rawlings play. They performed a mashup of this song and I Hear Them All as one of their encores and only used those ^ verses. It was amazing.

See also Jesse Wells. Guy's cooking rn

I dig his message but something about his music just grinds in my ears. I'm not sure exactly what it is, or why I don't feel the same way about Guthrie. Maybe something to do with finding him on Instagram biased me, but that seems far fetched.

New challenge unlocked!

Honestly, I find the Star Spangled Banner grating and only the best of the best singers can even kind of pull it off.

This Land Is Your Land has always hit the spot for me.

when i was in grade school (1970s, minnesota) we had a morning song before classes and another at the end of the day.

the whole school sang.

this one, including these verses, was one of the songs. it was also a staple in a music program each year for one of the grades to do during a performance for the parents.

Just listened to some of his songs and he just sounds like a cheap imitation of the great folk singers of the 60s and 70s and he's completely on the nose with his lyrics. Reminds me a lot of James McMurtry and Jason Isbell, but less interesting musically.

The one I learned at recess was

This land ain't your land, this land is my land
You better go back to Ellis Island
If you don't get off I'll blow your head off
This land was made for me not you

I'm going to restate this take more positively: continuing in the tradition of Guthrie and Dylan, Wells's direct lyricism and simple folk melodies provide a much needed continuity with the American counterculture of yesteryear

I found him on yt and was also initially trepidatious for that reason. The low production of his videos (pretty much all are one shot/one take playing a song outdoors) and clear lack of algorithmic support have largely assuaged those concerns. There are of course more radical acts I absolutely love, but Wingnut Dishwasher's Union or Andrew Jackson Jihad are for a much smaller audience. I'm glad he's doing what he does and appreciate being able to relate to his music along with my family

I like this take and agree with it.

Cheap imitation is good enough for me. Those guys were all cheap imitations of the artists of the 30s and 40s anyway

So when he heard “this land was made for you and me,” he didn’t hear that it belongs to everybody. He heard: this is OUR country.

Damn that changes everything. I never even imagined the song that way.

This Land Is Your Land

That's communism, comrade.

Here's the Canadian version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b38UTF-n31U

This just made me feel old. First reading that someone here was in high school so recently when the whole Trump deal was a thing, then realising that can mean it was 10 years ago...

Also checkout Guthrie's Jesus Christ song.

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land
A hard-working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor,"
But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave

CHORUS:
Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand
His followers true and brave
One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot
Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

He went to the preacher, He went to the sheriff
He told them all the same
"Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor,"
And they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.

CHORUS

When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around
Believed what he did say
But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross,
And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

CHORUS

And the people held their breath when they heard about his death
Everybody wondered why
It was the big landlord and the soldiers that they hired
To nail Jesus Christ in the sky

CHORUS

This song was written in New York City
Of rich man, preacher, and slave
If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee,
They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.

Alberta?

He also didn't know about climate change.

It's hard to listen to him singing about the glorious sight of smoke rising from industrial chimneys

Did you ever try not saying it?

They don't tell you, but it's actually optional. You get dirty looks, but they don't actually force you to recite it. That's just peer pressure.

Don't they just go by AJJ now?

Still play it at Thanksgiving myself, though I'm a little sad I don't have to sit around the radio at exactly noon anymore.

At that age, no. And by the time I got to middle school (age 12 I think) it wasn't a thing the school did any more.

Although if you wanna talk about brainwashing the kids... they used to do random tests of the air raid sirens (which were often located on the school rooftop). These "tests" were meant to warn us of a nuclear missile attack. If they happened while we were at school, the teachers would tell us it was a test, and we had to get under our desks; same as the earthquake drills. If they happened during summer break while you're just out riding your bike or playing ball with your friends, you just got to ponder whether it was real or just a test. If you build that fear early, it can be very sticky.

His music has a message but it lacks anything catchy. Rarely a chorus. It’s not the most enjoyable music.

pretty fucked up that the answer to a terrorist attack was deeper indoctrination into the state that ultimately cause the attack to happen in the long run.

it's like the human centipede of patriotism.

lol good guess but no. French Immersion school in Manitoba.

I had no idea this song was heroic! I remember singing it in first grade in the 80s. It’s struck me as propaganda for years. Nice reorientation!

I prefer America the Beautiful myself.