Dec. 4, 2008 (World News Trust) -- If you were to open your mouth and belt
out the words “this land is your land,” you
could rest assured that someone nearby would add: “this land is my
land.” The chorus to Woody Guthrie’s 1940
classic is common knowledge… as are the first couple of verses. But
it ain’t until you get to the later verses -- those often omitted
from official versions -- that you start comprehendin’ what good ol’
Woody had in mind:
As I was
walkin’ I saw a sign there
And that sign
said “No tresspassin’”
But on the
other side, it didn’t say nothin’
Now that side
was made for you and me
In the squares of the city/In the shadow of the
steeple
Near the
relief office, I see my people
And some are
grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s
still made for you and me
Woody sez: “This
song is Copyrighted in United States, 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.”
Let’s not
forget that Guthrie penned “This Land is My Land” in response to
Irving Berlin’s saccharine “God Bless America.”
And let’s not
forget the words Woody scrawled on his guitar: “This machine kills
fascists.”
Let’s also not
forget the power and prescience of Guthrie’s lyrics, like this from
“Jesus Christ”:
Jesus 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
And this from
“Pretty Boy Floyd”:
Yes, as
through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots
of funny men
Some will rob
you with a six-gun,
And some with
a fountain pen
And as through
your life you travel,
Yes, as
through your life you roam,
You won't
never see an outlaw
Drive a family
from their home
Woody Guthrie laid the foundation for
generations of American singer-songwriters to use their music and
lyrics to challenge the prevailing platitudes of popular music… and
to provide a Greek chorus of protest and outrage to keep us all more
honest and aware.
With the stakes having never been
higher and the denial never deeper, what we choose to do with this
awareness and outrage -- right now -- is genuinely a matter of
life and death…
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at
http://www.mickeyz.net.