'This land is your land, this land is my land'

Folk singer and songwriting legend Woody Guthrie wrote this well-known song in 1940. It became his most famous song, among the thousands that he wrote. He created prolifically, writing poems, drawing and composing book manuscripts. Music, though, was his life.

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie had a hard-scrabble early life, growing up in Oklahoma. Both his parents were musically inclined and taught him guitar and harmonica. The family suffered many tragedies, including the accidental death of his older sister and a fire that destroyed their home. Woody busked on the streets to earn cash to survive. His mother was institutionalized from a disease that was not understood. After facing financial ruin, his father abandoned the family and moved to Texas.

Woody traveled the country extensively as a young man, hopping trains and doing whatever he could to survive. He talked to everyone and learned about them. He saw the country’s expansive beauty and its unrealized promises.

When the Dust Bowl hit in the 1930s, he migrated to California with tens of thousands of others hit by the devastation from the drought and economic crisis of the Great Depression. He lived in migrant camps among farm workers and other refugees who were not welcomed. The state’s residents felt overwhelmed by the influx of people looking for work.

“This land is your land, this land is my land.”

If the term had existed back then, it would have been called “climate migration.” All poor folk knew was that they heard of better things in California. They had nothing to lose, so they went. Like so many who migrate today due to environmental, ecological and political crises, all they wanted was to work to feed their families and put a roof over their heads. At least Woody had his music, which enabled him to earn a meager living. During this period, his social consciousness grew into the steady influence it became in his later compositions and in his advocacy for the rights of others.

“This land is your land, this land is my land.”

In a quote from his writings called, “Woody Sez,” he said: I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. (woodyguthrie.org)

Many verses to the song came and went over the years. Most of the controversial protest verses were dropped over time. Most of us know the opening stanza and the chorus:

“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.

This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York island;

from the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me.”

Although Woody was a World War II veteran, serving in both the Merchant Marine and the Army, the government blacklisted him in the 1950s as they did so many others in the music and entertainment industries. The country was deep into the Cold War. Activists like him were seen as dangerous influences.

“This land is your land, this land is my land.”

By the 1950s, disease was ravaging his body, causing him to become more and more erratic and to be hospitalized many times. His problems were thought to be caused first by alcoholism or schizophrenia, until he was finally diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, which had taken his mother 30 years earlier. The cause of the disease is a rare genetic mutation that is neurological. It causes erratic behavior and psychiatric episodes. It eventually causes rigidity, then an inability to swallow and then an inability to breathe. Woody died in 1967, at the age of 55.

John Steinbeck said:

He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh-voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who still listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.” ~ John Steinbeck, from the Woody Guthrie Center

Woody Guthrie’s songs have been sung and recorded by countless musicians. His creative influence is inestimable and spans generations. What he wanted his listeners to know is a message we still need to hear:

“This land is your land, this land is my land.”