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This Land Is Your Land
This land is your land and this land is my land “This Land Is Your Land” is one of the United
From California to the New York island States’ most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in
This land was made for you and me 1940, based on an existing melody, a Carter Family
tune called “When the World’s on Fire”, in critical
As I went walking that ribbon of highway response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”
I saw above me that endless skyway When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing
Saw below me that golden valley “God Bless America” on the radio in the late 1930s,
This land was made for you and me he sarcastically called his song “God Blessed
America for Me” before renaming it “This Land Is
I roamed and rambled and Your Land.”[1]
I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts In 2002, “This Land Is Your Land” was one of
All around me a voice was sounding 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of
This land was made for you and me Congress to be added to the National Recording
Registry
When the sun come shining, then I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving Guthrie’s melody was very similar to the melody of
and the dust clouds rolling “Oh, My Loving Brother”, a Baptist gospel hymn that
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting had been recorded by the Carter Family as “When
This land was made for you and me the World’s On Fire” and had inspired their “Little
Darlin’, Pal of Mine.” He used the same melody for
This land is your land and this land is my land the chorus and the verses.
From California to the New York island
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters Guthrie’s song, however, had a different
This land was made for you and me melodic structure from the hymn or the similar
Carter Family melodies, and he used only the first
When the sun come shining, then I was strolling half of those melodies in his song. The melodic
And the wheat fields waving structure of the presumed model can be described
and the dust clouds rolling as “ABCD”—a new melodic phrase for each of its
four lines. Guthrie’s structure, however, is “ABAC.”
The voice come a-chanting and the fog was lifting In other words, Guthrie repeats the beginning of the
This land was made for you and me melody (the “A” section) for his third line; the
melodic phrase for his fourth line (“This land was
Source: Musixmatch made for you and me”) is found in neither the hymn
Songwriters: Woody Guthrie nor the Carter Family melodies
This Land Is Your Land lyrics © Ludlow Music Inc.,
Woody Guthrie Publications Inc, Ludlow Music As with other folk songs, it was sung with different
Obo Woody Guthrie Publication Inc, Ludlow words at various times although the motives for this
Music Inc Obo Woody Guthrie Publications particular change of lyrics may involve the possible
political interpretations of the verses. Recordings of
To listen follow this link... Guthrie have him singing the verses with different
words.
(Souce Wikipedia)
12 www.writeawaymag.co.uk
