life:
Did you know? — On this day in 1940 Woody Guthrie wrote one of his best known folk songs, “This Land is Your Land.”
Pictured: Woody Guthrie entertains commuters, 1943. “There’s a feeling in music and it carries you back down the road you have traveled and makes you travel it again. Sometimes when I hear music I think back over my days — and a feeling that is fifty-fifty joy and pain swells like clouds taking all kinds of shapes in my mind.”
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Growing up my father always told me he would prefer “This Land is Your Land” to “The Star-spangled Banner” as our national anthem. I agree. The always-omitted-from-school-performance verses are as relevant, unfortunately, as they were back in 1940:
“As I was walkin’, I saw a sign there
And that sign said: no trespassin’
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.”
