The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #168245   Message #4064360
Posted By: GUEST,Gerry
15-Jul-20 - 11:32 PM
Thread Name: This land is WHOSE land?
Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
The very first post in this thread asked,

"Out of interest, did anyone every question Guthrie on his famous 'This land is your land' song?

"Or, did anyone write a politically (more) correct version, on the basis that 'this land ain't your land, this land ain't my land, this land was stole for you and me'...?"

And the answer yes, there are several versions out there that make that point. You can probably find some of them in the "Related threads" that are linked on this page.

It may be worth pointing out the Guthrie wrote the song as a reply to God Bless America.

The funny thing about the "private property" and "relief office" stanzas is the Guthrie himself didn't always sing them. When I first learned about those verses, I had a listen to my Guthrie CDs, and was surprised to find he didn't sing them on those recordings. So it's not necessarily the case that later singers deliberately omitted those stanzas – it may be that they learned the song from recordings where Guthrie didn't include them.