Song Of The Day

Song of the day

(do you want the history of your favorite folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown)

"This Land Is Your Land" Woody Guthrie, 1940

the melody is originally based on "When the World's on Fire" by the Carter family, 1933, which was based on the older song and melody "What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire" by the Birmingham Jubilee Singers, 1928

woody Guthrie's song was written in response to the song "God Bless America" by Irving Berlin in 1938 (the original version was written in 1918) and performed by Kate Smith. He was tired of hearing it on the radio.

Like many of Woody's songs, "This Land is Your Land" is explicitly pro-worker and anti-exploitation. You could even argue that it's explicitly anti-private property. As this song got sanded down for the mainstream, its more radical themes and messages were somewhat forgotten, and it became a general patriotic song for children and adults to enjoy, the very thing that Guthrie sought to criticize in the first place.

there are many covers of this song for many different countries, but my favorite version is the live one by Pete Seeger performed in 1976, where he talks about its history as a socialist song and invites the audience to sing along with him.

New York City, 1943

" I could talk to you about fascism. It is a big word and it hides in some pretty little places.

It is nothing in the world but greed for profit and greed for the power to hurt and make slaves out of the people."

Woody Guthrie, from his diary to his daughter c. 1940s

Peggy Seeger 2023 interview talking about Elizabeth Cotten and "Freight Train"