From Woodie’s wiki page:
“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.” - Woodie Guthrie
Our lyrics:
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
To the Texas border
Through the Juarez mountains
With the migrant caravans
This land was made for you and me
This land is your land
This land is my land
From the Piers of Charleston
To the fields of cotton
From the crowded prisons
To the streets of Ferguson
This land was made for you and me
This land is your land
This land is my land
From the Jamestown landing
To Lakota badlands
From the trail of tears to
the reservations
This land was made for you and me
+++
Vice’s moving version reminds us that often when we sing about inclusion (“your land”) we glibly gloss over history and fail to hear the voices of those from whom the land as taken. Vice’s stirring version of the song inspires us to embrace her message: “There are a lot of reasons to celebrate being American but one thing that must first be talked about is the history. Healing can’t begin without first acknowledge the gaping wound created by the colonization, the mass genocide of the Indigenous people, and the enslavement of African slaves. There is still much work to be done.”
https://www.folkalley.com/song-premiere/2021/song-premiere-liz-vice-this-land-is-your-land#
