Today I Learned

This song is dope, I remember preferring this over most other of our national songs

Also checkout Guthrie's Jesus Christ song.

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land A hard-working man and brave He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor," But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave

CHORUS: Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand His followers true and brave One dirty little coward called Judas Iscariot Has laid Jesus Christ in His Grave

He went to the preacher, He went to the sheriff He told them all the same "Sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor," And they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.

CHORUS

When Jesus come to town, all the working folks around Believed what he did say But the bankers and the preachers, they nailed Him on the cross, And they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

CHORUS

And the people held their breath when they heard about his death Everybody wondered why It was the big landlord and the soldiers that they hired To nail Jesus Christ in the sky

CHORUS

This song was written in New York City Of rich man, preacher, and slave If Jesus was to preach what He preached in Galilee, They would lay poor Jesus in His grave.

I roamed and rambled, and I followed my footsteps

To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts

All around me a voice was a-sounding

This land was made for you and me

There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me

Sign was painted, said "Private Property"

But on the back side, it didn't say nothing

This land was made for you and me

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people

By the relief office, I seen my people

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking

Is this land made for you and me?

They need to bring these verses back in the mainstream renditions of the song, but it's obvious why they don't.

I remember in high school my band teacher (who was/is perhaps the biggest Trump supporter in the tristate area) played a YouTube video of this song during our Veterans Day program. That was the first time I heard the whole song, and the irony was not lost on me.

Honestly, I find the Star Spangled Banner grating and only the best of the best singers can even kind of pull it off.

This Land Is Your Land has always hit the spot for me.

When I was in grade shcool in California in the 70s, we were forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of class each day (very common in school and government functions across the USA at the time), but also in my school, we would follow the pledge with the whole class singing a verse of This Land is your Land. I didn't understand or appreciate this until many years later.

Just last night I introduced my partner to the music of Woody's son, Arlo Guthrie. They had never heard Arlo's famous anti-draft/anti-police song "Alice's Restaurant Massacree." I was shocked; I grew up with WAMC playing the song every Thanksgiving.

See also Jesse Wells. Guy's cooking rn

I had no idea this song was heroic! I remember singing it in first grade in the 80s. It’s struck me as propaganda for years. Nice reorientation!

If you want to hear it

We used to have to sing that, and "Oh Canada" every morning at school when I was little, although we had our own rendition...

This land Is my land and only my land,

I've got a shotgun and you don't got one,

So if you don't get off I'll blow your head off,

This land is mine and only mine,

I've had a hard time separating this song from the idea of manifest destiny ever since Jack Layton famously performed it on the campaign trail and faced that criticism. I realise that I'm probably missing the point, and so were the people who "translated" it to 'canadian'.

15 years later I now hear it as the realization that the american dream is a lie. North America was colonized and the colonizers were promised all of its riches and freedom from serfdom. But there are still no trespassing signs, and people are still dependent on religious and state aid, despite the vast abundance.

I think the song ends with him being like "well fuck you I'm going after that freedom anyways" which doesn't quite match my interpretation of the lyrics before that part, but we see the world differently in the current era and I'm not sure how much Guthrie might have known about colonialism.

Here's the Canadian version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b38UTF-n31U