This Land is Your Land was written in 1940. It expresses the American spirit of spit-in-your-eye optimism better than any other song in this book, except for maybe Yankee Doodle. It celebrates the land and the people It thumbs its nose a little at authority that takes itself too seriously. The tune is joyous. If you start humming it, it may easily be several days before you can stop. Its attitude is the very opposite of an anthem, so maybe it should be considered to be the national anti-anthem.
Woody Guthrie was born July 14, 1912. His mother was a victim of Huntington's disease, a horrible genetic disease that also eventually killed Woody. At the time, the disease was not understood. People just thought that madness ran in his family. His mother was eventually committed to an asylum. When Woody tried to visit her, she didn't even know him.
He was caught up in the worst of the Great Depression. In Oklahoma, poor land management practices and a devastating drought resulted in the Dust Bowl. Dust storms could darken the sky and leave dust inches deep. Much of Oklahoma was depopulated. Dust Bowl refugees were so common that they received a name — Okies. So many tried to migrate to California that the governor lined up police at the border (illegally) to keep them out.
Woody Guthrie wrote This Land is Your Land in response to Irving Berlin's God Bless America. To him, it sounded like the songs that told poor, oppressed people to accept things as they are. He felt, in the words of the Joe Hill song, that "You'll get pie in the sky when you die" was a message to keep common people from rebelling. Guthrie took the idea expressed in the Berlin song:
From the mountain
To the prairie
To the ocean white with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home
and made it into a song of his own. His original refrain line was, "God blessed America for me." He later changed it to "This land was made for you and me." Compare the Irving Berlin song to the original draft of the Woody Guthrie song:
From California to Staten Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
God blessed America for me
Like Key, Guthrie may have used an existing tune. He may have gotten it from the Carter family song, Little Darlin', Pal of Mine, although Little Darlin' sounds as close to You are My Sunshine to my ear.
In the night while you lay sleeping
Dreaming of your amber skies
Was a poor boy broken hearted
Listening to the winds that sigh
My little darling
Oh how I love you
How I love you none can tell
In your heart you love another
Little darling pal of mine
or the Baptist hymn,
Oh my lovin' brother when the world's on fire
Don't you want God's bosom to be your pillow
Hide me over in the rock of ages
Rock of ages cleft for me.
Little pieces of the these songs are also in Guthrie's song — Rock of ages cleft for me, Dreaming of your amber skies. That doesn't mean that Woody Guthrie was not being original. He was reworking existing material into something completely new.
A dust storm, circa 1935
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.
I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said, "No trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
One bright Sunday morning
In the shadows of the steeple
By the Relief Office
I seen my people.
As they stood there hungry
I stood there whistling,
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining
And I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving
And the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting
A voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.