This Land Is Your Land

by Woody Guthrie

　　

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This Land Is Your Land (1940, revised in 1944) was originally titled God Blessed America For Me, is considered one of America's most famous folk songs. Guthrie composed it as a critical response to Irving Berlin's traditional patriotic song, God Bless America (1918, 1938), which Guthrie thought was unrealistic and complacent. Guthrie's patriotic tune is an endearing tribute to American populism. We offer the more familiar 1944 lyrics below, featured in our collection of Patriotic Songs.

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Albert Bierstadt, Redwood Forest of California, 1874

　　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. As I was walking that ribbon of highway I saw above me that endless skyway I saw below me that golden valley This land was made for you and me. I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts While all around me a voice was sounding This land was made for you and me. When the sun came shining, and I was strolling And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting, This land 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.

　　

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Guthrie's song is featured in our collections, Children's Poems and American Patriotic Songs. You may also enjoy Carl Sandburg's poem, Prairie.

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