Song of the Day: "This Land Is Your Land"
Woody wrote it 83 years ago today. Later he cut two tough stanzas. Plus, Brandi Carlile rocks a coffee house--at age 20.
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of award-winning films. He was also a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy.
On this day in 1940, Woody Guthrie composed a little ditty later titled “This Land Is Your Land” in his room at the Hanover House Hotel in midtown New York City. It was written in response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” and originally called “God Blessed America.” Guthrie allegedly forgot about the song and did not record it for four years.
Note: the line “from California to the New York island” was originally “from California to Staten Island”! (And go here if you missed, earlier this week, my tribute to the Woody/Wilco “California Stars.”)
The original “This Land etc.” also had two stanzas—now famous but long ignored—that were cut from later versions:
Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn't say nothing —
God blessed America for me.
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me.
Usually I offer many (too many?) versions of the selected songs by various artists. But in this case you may have heard 50 of them but never by Woody himself. So here’s Woody’s first version from 1944, with the soon-to-be-sliced lyrics.
A later, shorter, version with those two stanzas deep-sixed. This also includes virtually the only footage of him singing in his life.
A better look at the Woody footage here.
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Bonus (Unrelated)
Some guy last year posted this charming video of Brandi Carlile singing and strumming in a Bellingham, WA coffee house—back in 2002 when she was just twenty.
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