Half-a-century ago, in the late fifties, a wave of popular music swept across America that captured the imagination of a nation that was just beginning to morph from national innocence to prolonged skepticism and disillusionment. The catalyst of that transformation was, of course, the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The subsequent murders of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and John Lennon only fueled that growing undercurrent of national distrust and resentment that permeates our society even today.
You couldn’t dance to that music, so far removed was it from the histrionics of Chuck Berry, Elvis, Gene Vincent and Little Richard, so it was never showcased on American Bandstand but the movement gave birth to some of the most memorable song lyrics ever recorded and it would eventually help fuel the groundswell of protests to the Vietnam War in the ensuing decades of the sixties and seventies and launched the careers of a new crop of singers who would contribute admirably to the genre.
We’re talking about American folk music and the popular but short-lived ABC musical variety show, Hootenanny.
The movement began inconspicuously enough around 1958 with the number-one, Grammy winning Tom Dooley by the Kingston Trio. In short order we had Harry Belafonte with The Banana Boat Song (Day-O), the Brothers Four with Darling Sporting Jenny, and the Highwaymen with Cotton Fields.
Remember the Kingston Trio in their follow up hit, The MTA, quoting Thomas Paine with the opening (spoken) line, “These are the times that try men’s souls”?
How prophetic.
Those performers and those songs opened the door for Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the New Christy Minstrels, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Barry McGuire, Melanie, John Denver, Neil Young, Peter, Paul and Mary, Buffalo Springfield, and Arlo Guthrie, son of arguably the most famous folk singer of them all, Woody Guthrie. Even Shreveport’s Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, considered himself a folk singer even though record executives tried to market him as blues. He wrote such folk classics as Goodnight Irene, The Rock Island Line, and House of the Rising Sun (Yes, the Animals’ hit was originally a folk song).
Just as the movement was on the wan, the Vietnam War spawned a whole new generation of songs: One Tin Soldier, For What It’s Worth, Eve of Destruction, Running Through the Jungle, Fortunate Son, War (What is it Good For?), Barry’s Boys, and others. One man, Pete Seeger, spanned both eras and performed well into his nineties.
But let us return to the greatest of them all and perhaps the best folk song ever written, one that resonates louder and more clearly and with more tragic irony today than ever. Let us etch the lyrics of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land into our consciousness, grasp the words’ meaning in their totality and never allow the song’s message to wander far from our lips:
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
The last line tells us everything we need to know about this country and a national feeling of shared pride that was somehow lost along the way: This land was made for you and me.
This land does not belong to the James River Corp., the Chesapeake Energy Co. or to the Koch Brothers. It belongs to you and me—to preserve, to hold and to nurture. Not to pillage, rape and squander her bounty. To that end, we could learn a valuable lesson from the Native Americans.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me
Politicians and their campaign contributors should not control this land. This land is not owned by Big Pharma or ExxonMobil or Archer Daniels Midland, though you’d never know it by walking the halls of Congress or by strolling down K Street in Washington, D.C., or by examining laws and regulations that were written so as to contribute to the richest one percent or to benefit corporate America at the expense of you and me.
In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me.
How is it that corporations like General Electric can ship jobs overseas where they can exploit cheap labor, rake in record profits, yet pay no corporate income taxes? How is it that this once great land has become a debtor nation with China holding most of the IOU chits? Is this the land we inherited? Is this what politicians and Tea Partiers gush about when they become so misty-eyed while referring longingly to “the American Way?”
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
I’ve roamed and rambled and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there
And that sign said – no tress passin’
But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side 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 forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Attached here are several YouTube videos of various artists performing the song. Perhaps the most poignant is that of the New Christy Minstrels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hSjIDBj5pI&feature=related because it contains disturbing video clips of what this country has become as opposed to what we would wish it to be.
Others include Bruce Springsteen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuc4BI5NWU&feature=related not because we necessarily prefer his version but because of his spoken observations while introducing the song during one of his concerts.
We include a link to Harry Belafonte’s version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqAyiKaS5uQ simply because he has such a pleasant voice, not laced with anger or outrage.
The Kingston Trio is included http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07spb387Opc because we feel it is the most rousing version and does the best job of capturing the true spirit of the song.
But no compilation would be complete without two very special versions of the song. The first, by Woody’s son Arlo, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqZ3oNsMVr0&feature=related as he performs (in a tuxedo, if you can believe that) with, of all things, the Boston Pops and finally, by Woody himself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s&feature=related
Next Wednesday, October 3, will mark the 45th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s death.
Louisiana Voice 
Neil Young and Crazy Horse released an album this year called Americana. It is all covers of great folk songs including This Land Is Your Land and Tom Dula (Dooley). Classic Neil and the horse and he’s written more than a few of his own protest songs.
A rousing inspirational chunk of truth. Thank you for reminding us of whose land it is..
Tom
What about Buffalo Springfield w/ Neil Young on For What It’s worth?
Greg
Tom
What about Ohio by CSN&Y?
Or Teach Your Children Well by the same group. The list could go on and on…
Thanks, Tom.
Thanks for the fabulous music links! Baez and Dylan remind me of Churchill’s inspired(paraphrased) quote that never have so few done so much for so many! I loved the folk music and I frequented a club just off Canal Street on the first block of Bourbon Street where I often watched and listened to the Kingston Trio in the mid sixties. What was it’s name?
I went there myself a time or two. I was single then (1964) and the pianist at a Baptist Church where I attended in Gretna introduced me to the club but like you, I can’t remember the name of the club–or the pianist. Was it the Bamboo Club? Readers?
And, tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Was it the Bourbon House @ 144 Bourbon?
After sleeping on it, I believe it was called the Bayou Room.
None of those names rings a bell. It could be the Bayou Room or more likely the Bamboo Room. Was it some kind of Skillet? Whatever the name, I spent a lot of happy hours there mainly at Kingston Trio appearances while working across the river at Gretna.
I may have imbibed my first mixed drinks at those occaisons and that may have somthing to do with my memory. I come from a Babtist background, too, but I am not a teetotaler or a ten mile Babtist either. I’ve drunk beer with the preacher present. I don’t know what kind of Babtist that makes me. An honest one, perhaps.
Yes, the mixed drinks and 45 years combined to cloud my memory! Still, it’s another of those HOW COULD YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT moments. I do remember well Preservation Hall and Sweet Emma!
Those were some times worth remembering!
This is one of the most moving, star-studded versions of “This Land was Made for You and Me” – with a fabulous ending with John Mellencamp.