This Land Is Your Land


"This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, based on an existing melody, a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire", in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically called his song "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land."
In 2002, "This Land Is Your Land" was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

Melody

Guthrie's melody was very similar to the melody of "Oh, My Loving Brother", a Baptist gospel hymn that had been recorded by the Carter Family as "When the World's On Fire" and had inspired their "Little Darlin', Pal of Mine." He used the same melody for the chorus and the verses.
Guthrie's song, however, had a different melodic structure from the hymn or the similar Carter Family melodies, and he used only the first half of those melodies in his song. The melodic structure of the presumed model can be described as "ABCD"—a new melodic phrase for each of its four lines. Guthrie's structure, however, is "ABAC." In other words, Guthrie repeats the beginning of the melody for his third line; the melodic phrase for his fourth line is found in neither the hymn nor the Carter Family melodies.

Original 1940 lyrics

Following are the original lyrics as composed on February 23, 1940, in Guthrie's room at the Hanover House hotel at 43rd St. and 6th Ave. in New York, showing his strikeouts. The line "This land was made for you and me" does not literally appear in the manuscript at the end of each verse, but is implied by Guthrie's writing of those words at the top of the page and by his subsequent singing of the line with those words.
The original title was "God Blessed America", but it was struck out and replaced by "This Land Was Made For You & Me". It appears therefore that the original 1940 title was "This Land".
According to Joe Klein, after Guthrie composed it "he completely forgot about the song, and didn't do anything with it for another five years."

Original 1944 lyrics

Note that this version drops the two political verses from the original: Verse four, about private property, and verse six, about hunger.

Confirmation of two other verses

A March 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the "private property" verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian who were interviewed as part of the History Channel program Save Our History – Save our Sounds. The 1944 recording with this fourth verse can be found on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.
Woodyguthrie.org has a variant:
It also has a verse:
A 1945 pamphlet which omitted the last two verses has caused some question as to whether the original song did in fact contain the full text. The original manuscript confirms both of these verses.
As with other folk songs, it was sung with different words at various times although the motives for this particular change of lyrics may involve the possible political interpretations of the verses. Recordings of Guthrie have him singing the verses with different words.
The radical verses are not often performed in schools or official functions. They can be best interpreted as a protest against the vast income inequalities that exist in the United States, and against the sufferings of millions during the Great Depression. America, Guthrie insists, was made—and could still be made—for you and me. This interpretation is consistent with such other Guthrie songs as "Pretty Boy Floyd" and Guthrie's lifelong struggle for social justice.
The song was revived in the 1960s, when several artists of the new folk movement, including Bob Dylan, The Kingston Trio, Trini Lopez, Jay and the Americans, and The New Christy Minstrels all recorded versions, inspired by its political message. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded the song in 1962 for their Moving album. The Seekers recorded the song for their 1965 album, A World of Our Own. It was performed many times by the cyclist choir, accompanied by guitarists and a wash-tub bassist, during the Wandering Wheels historic 1966 U.S. coast-to-coast bicycle trip. At the founding convention of the Canadian social democratic New Democratic Party, a version of the song was sung by the attending delegates. Bruce Springsteen first began performing it live on the River Tour in 1980, and released one such performance of it on Live/1975–85, in which he called it "about one of the most beautiful songs ever written."
The song was performed by Springsteen and Pete Seeger, accompanied by Seeger's grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger, at on January 18, 2009. The song was restored to the original lyrics for this performance with exceptions of the changes in the end of the 'Private Property' and 'Relief Office' verses; the former's final line was changed from "This land was made for you and me" to "That side was made for you and me," and the latter's third and fourth lines to "As they stood hungry, I stood there whistling, This land was made for you and me," from the original lyrics, "As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?"
Voice actress and children's entertainer Debi Derryberry recorded a version for her musical album What A Way To Play in 2006.
In 2010, Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, the surviving members of Peter, Paul and Mary, requested that the National Organization for Marriage stop using their recording of "This Land is Your Land" at their rallies, stating in a letter that the organization's philosophy was "directly contrary to the advocacy position" held by the group.
In 2019, Arlo Guthrie led a version of "This Land is Your Land" at the July 4 Boston Pops concert. Guthrie sang the 'no trespassing' verse but substituted the first line of the 'private property' verse, and Queen Latifah sang the 'freedom highway' verse. The 'Relief Office' verse was not included.
Arlo Guthrie tells a story in concerts on occasion, of his mother returning from a dance tour of China, and reporting around the Guthrie family dinner table that at one point in the tour she was serenaded by Chinese children singing the song. Arlo says Woody was incredulous: "The Chinese? Singing "This land is your land, this land is my land? From California to the New York island?"

Variations

As is the case with many well-known songs, it has been the subject of an enormous number of variations and parodies. They include:

Versions about other countries

Many variants of the song have been recorded with lyrics adjusted to fit other countries, regions, languages, and ethnic groups. They include:
The song has been recorded by many performers over the years, ranging from American Country legend Glen Campbell, hardcore band Hated Youth, all the way to Turkish performer Nuri Sesigüzel to reggae group The Melodians.
A few other notable recordings are by:
A version called "This badge is your badge", about FC United of Manchester, was written by fan Mickey O'Farrell, and is often sung by fans at the club's matches.

In film, television, internet, books, and advertising

The song has been sung by characters in many film and television productions, including Bob Roberts, Stepmom, Full House, The Luck of the Irish, Up in the Air and by Renée Zellweger in the 2010 film My Own Love Song.
It has been parodied many times, including:
On the typescript submitted for copyright of "This Land Is Your Land", Guthrie wrote:
This song is Copyrighted in U.S., 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.

A number of different organizations claim copyright for the song.
According to the Carter Family, the melody came from a tune that A.P. Carter had found and recorded with Sarah and Maybelle Carter prior to 1934 and was not original to Guthrie.
In 2004, the website JibJab hosted a parody of the song, with John Kerry and George W. Bush singing altered lyrics to comment on the US 2004 Presidential election, resulting in The Richmond Organization, a music publisher that owns the copyright to Guthrie's tune through its Ludlow Music unit, threatening legal action.
JibJab then sued to affirm their parody was Fair Use, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation acting for them. As part of their research on the case they found that the song had been first published by Woody Guthrie in 1945, although the copyright was not registered until 1956. This meant that when Ludlow applied to renew the copyright in 1984 they were 11 years too late as the song had been in the public domain since 1973. The Richmond Organization settled with Jibjab shortly thereafter, agreeing that JibJab were free to distribute their parody. In an interview on NPR Arlo Guthrie said that he thought the parody was hilarious and he thought Woody would have loved it too. Richmond still, however, claims copyright on other versions of the song, such as those appearing in the 1956 and later publications. Legally, such claims only apply to original elements of the song that were not in the public domain version.
The Richmond Organization and Ludlow Music were sued in 2016 over their claims of copyright in a lawsuit led by Randall Newman. In a similar case, Newman previously successfully argued the song "Happy Birthday to You" was public domain. In February 2020, Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Federal District Court in Manhattan dismissed the case because the plaintiffs had already paid the license fee, so there was no legal dispute to adjudicate.