This Land Is Your Land
| This Land Is Your Land (1940) by |
"This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs, written by Woody Guthrie in 1940. It was originally written in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." Guthrie considered that song unrealistic and complacent, and was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing it on the radio, so he wrote a different song, originally called "God Blessed America for Me." Guthrie varied the lyrics over time, sometimes including more overtly political verses that often do not appear in recordings or publications.
The publication "10 of the Woody Guthrie songs" was submitted as evidence in the court case JibJab v Ludlow to prove this song was in the Public domain.[1] |
CHORUS:
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 went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway,
And saw below me the golden valley, I said:
This land was made for you and me
CHORUS
I roamed and rambled and 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
CHORUS
Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn't say nothing —
This land was made for you and me
CHORUS
When the sun come shining, then I was strolling
In wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling;
The voice was sounding as the fog was lifting:
This land was made for you and me
CHORUS
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
This land was made for you and me
CHORUS
"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."
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This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) before 1964, and copyright was not renewed.
The author died in 1967, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 30 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. Works published in 1940 would have had to renew their copyright in either 1967 or 1968, i.e. at least 27 years after it was first published / registered but not later than 31 December in the 28th year. As it was not renewed, it entered the public domain on 1 January 1969. |
