This Land is Your Land

It is ours, yous and mine, along with all of the millions of species with whom we share this land. Birds, cats, dogs, squirrels, cows, sheep, fish, insects, plants--the whole biosphere.

Woody Guthrie [July 14, 1912–October 3, 1967]¹ recorded the song, with Cisco Houston, in April 1944, four years after writing it.

---

A classic. I remember learning & singing both this original American version and the Canadian version in elementary school in the 1960s. (The Canadian version is posted below.) Much thanks and appreciation to Woody Guthrie for such an inspiring song.

The U.S. Library of Congress recalls the history of what motivated Guthrie to writing this song:

In February 1940, Guthrie wrote "This Land is Your Land" in reaction to Irving Berlin's song "God Bless America." Guthrie heard Berlin's song repeatedly while he traveled cross-country and became increasingly annoyed that it glossed over the lop-sided distribution of land and wealth that he was observing and had experienced as a child. Although Guthrie was no statistician his observations accurately reflected the fact that, even in the depths of the Depression, nearly 20 percent of the nation's wealth rested with one percent of its population.

Today, the top one percent own 30 percent of America’s wealth and the top 10 percent own about two-thirds of it. In America, inequality is greater than ever and it shows in everyday life. It affects people at the grocery store, at the gas pump, at the mall, at the bank. In my nation of Canada, while inequality is significantly less (Canada has a Gini coefficient of 0.33 vs U.S. of 0.42), its effects are the same. Greed and inequality is just more severe and worse in America than it is in any other G7 nation. Inequality that harms our quality of life is pretty much the same everywhere in the world, a direct consequence of U.S.-inspired & -pushed ideologies like neoliberalism, globalization, consumerism and the normalization of unmitigated greed.

So, intense greed leads to intense inequalities, which touches all aspects of our lives, even if we are unaware of its effects. Even if we are somewhat ignorant of economics or of monetary policy, greed touches us. Just visit the grocery store or see how your housing costs so much more—along with pretty much everything else—and you can easily see and feel the results of insatiable greed. So, yes, the real everyday consequences and cruelty of greed matters. To you and me.

It is clear and evident that the cost of housing, food, utilities have increased greatly over the years, much more than the wages of workers. The gap between income and expenses widens each year. There is no justifiable reason. It is pure greed. The fat cats are getting fatter and fatter, with apologies to my furry felines who are in no way responsible for the mess we find ourselves in during the last 40+ years. When greed increases to the high levels we are witnessing today, difficult times will increase for the majority of people. This is the case today for at least 80 percent of the population, who have seen their ability to pay the bills decrease a lot since the late 1970s.²

Consequentially, populist movements have been forming in America and around the world in the last decade or so. There is a kind of awakening. Some are nativist and mix religion with nationalism, often blaming foreigners or people who support one political party or another for tough times, which is misplaced and just plain wrong. This is what the billionaire class wants us to believe, but it is so far from the truth. Look higher, all the way to the top of the economic pyramid—to the billionaires, to the bankers, to the land speculators and to the corporations and their hoarding and greedy ways—for the root of most of the societal problems we all are facing.

Helen Keller, the American author, disability rights advocate and political activist & lecturer, got it right when she wrote the following in Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1920):

“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands — the ownership and control of their livelihoods — are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.

It really is as simple as that. This makes the words to this song as powerful and poignant today as they were in 1944—80 years ago—when Woody Guthrie put them to a song that remains popular to this day. Moreover, to take the song further, this land—the land we walk on, the air that we breathe and the waters that we enjoy—is made for all the species with whom we share this wonderful Earth. The whole awesome biosphere.

This Land Is Your Land
Words by Woody Guthrie

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've roamed and rambled and I 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.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side 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?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Here is the Canadian version, sung by The Travellers:

This land is your land, This land is my land,
From Bonavista, to Vancouver Island
From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters,
This land was made for you and me.

As I went 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,
Saying this land was made for you and me.

The sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling;
As the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting,
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land,
From Bonavista to Vancouver Island;
From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters,
This land was made for you and me.

Merci et à bientôt
Canadian & Lifelong Liberal
Born at 315 ppm
Now at 425 ppm

1. Woody Guthrie: “Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born on July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. Over the decades, his songs have run around the world like a fast train on a well-oiled track. They've become the folk song standards of the nation, known and performed in many languages throughout the world. He wrote over 3,000 songs in his lifetime, hundreds of which that have become staples in the canon of American music. He inspired several generations both politically and musically with songs such as ‘This Land Is Your Land.’

[…]

“Woody Guthrie died on October 3, 1967 while at Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens, New York. His ashes were sprinkled into the waters off of Coney Island's shore.”

2. Economic Policy Institute (December 2024): “The growing wedge between productivity and typical workers’ pay is income going everywhere but the paychecks of the bottom 80% of workers. If it didn’t end up in paychecks of typical workers, where did all the income growth implied by the rising productivity line go? Two places, basically. It went into the salaries of highly paid corporate and professional employees. And it went into higher profits (returns to shareholders and other wealth owners). This concentration of wage income at the top (growing wage inequality) and the shift of income from labor overall and toward capital owners (the loss in labor’s share of income) are two of the key drivers of economic inequality overall since the late 1970s.”