This Land is Your Land

Very nice, but shouldn’t it be a little harder to get a lump in one’s throat after weeks of mediocre appointments to the major posts in Obama’s cabinet? Liberals’ hopes were raised in 1960 by JFK’s style and gestures, but in the end he was nothing much to cheer about.

Some of what’s going on here is the kind of domestication of radicals from our past that is typical of our political culture. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate Dr. King, but while many will remember the “I Have A Dream Speech,” few will recall the powerful questioning of war and capitalism itself that marked King’s last years.

The radical verses of “This Land” have undergone something of a revival in recent years. They’re prominently featured in Kathy Jakobsen’s beautiful picture book of the song, which our kids grew up on and which, since we moved to Oklahoma, is a standard gift we give friends of ours when they become parents.

Certainly it’s better for those verses to be sung. Perhaps some listeners who haven’t heard them before will reflect on the meaning.

But the cynic in me fears that the first verse reproduced above is now singable precisely because nobody anymore–at the very least nobody in the incoming administration–takes seriously Guthrie’s call to eliminate private property. What was once inspiring (or threatening, depending on one’s perspective) is now a kind of museum piece.

I don’t think the song is a museum piece. It’s true that nobody today wants to eliminate private property. But songs like this are part of the lefty cannon not because we are all unreconstructed communists, but because we think it’s powerful to say that private property rights are not the panacea that dominant conservative ideology takes them to be. When you sing about how “the other side” is “made for you and me,” one thing you can mean is that we need to scale back private property rights for the common good. At least that’s how it sounded to me when my folk-singing friends and I used to sing it.

It’s true that most lyrics just wash right over most people. But when you have canonical texts, and people learn them, every so often somebody will start thinking about what the words mean.

My one sadness is that too many people will remember the fucking awful JibJab take. And my hope is that people will take to singing “This Land Is Your Land” during the seventh-inning stretch.

while many will remember the “I Have A Dream Speech,” few will recall the powerful questioning of war and capitalism itself that marked King’s last years.

I don’t agree with that assertion, and here’s why: lots of people make it. Remember that the sabre-rattling run-up to the Iraq invasion took place in early 2003, around the time of the holiday to commemorate Dr King. In that context, lots of people rediscovered “Beyond Vietnam”. Once you have the mainstreaming of the meme that nobody remembers what MLK Did Next, then you’re over the hump.

Oh, and anticipatory liberal disappointment is not new either. If the members of the Dave Spart Five could just do what comes naturally and declare the Obama presidency a complete failure already, we can get on with doing what we can to assuage it.

Actually he sang the verse not with ‘no tress passin’’ but ‘private property’

Tsch, typical. You wait ages for grumblers and then they all turn up at once.

I should have been more clear. I don’t, in fact, think the song is a museum piece at all. I fear, however, that it’s now ok to sing the previously excised verses because most people will experience the song as a museum piece. Despite our current economic crisis, our President Elect and Democratic Congressional leadership are still somewhere to the right of Teddy Roosevelt when it comes to questioning capitalism.

nick s (re: MLK):
“I don’t agree with that assertion, and here’s why: lots of people make it. Remember that the sabre-rattling run-up to the Iraq invasion took place in early 2003, around the time of the holiday to commemorate Dr King. In that context, lots of people rediscovered “Beyond Vietnam”. Once you have the mainstreaming of the meme that nobody remembers what MLK Did Next, then you’re over the hump.”

I don’t recall hearing about ‘Beyond Vietnam’ back in 2003, and I was hanging around on plenty of liberal, if not leftist, blogs.

Thanks for sharing this. As I wrote on my blog, reading this story gave me goosebumps. Pete Seeger is a national treasure and the fact that he was asked to perform at all is, I think, very telling about the social conscience of the man we just elected to lead us and the people that he has chosen to surround himself with. On my desk sits a famous picture of Woody Guthrie, cigarette falling out of his mouth, guitar hanging there with the the saying “This Machine Kills Fascists” prominently displayed. Woody and Pete used the power of song to organize workers, to protest racial discrimination and to bring a social conscience to the world.

This is indeed a time of great hope for our nation. This land was made for you and me.

In my Kindergarten classroom, we still sing those verses. The kids prefer Sharon Jones’ rendition of the song (in which those verses are included).

It’s a sad statement on patriotism that factual observations and critical thinking (we use the Jakobsen book and the song to start a unit on working together and our community) feels radical.

Oh but look, it’s just popped up again.

Liberals’ hopes were raised in 1960 by JFK’s style and gestures, but in the end he was nothing much to cheer about.Bingo- Camelot II is exactly what we’re looking at here. Lots of style, lots of swooning by easily snookered liberal intellectuals- but precious little progressive substance. Even the warmongering looks as though it will be at a pretty similar level.

ajay wrote “Grumblin’ and wonderin’ are what Americans do best

I resent that. Compared to the British, Americans are strictly second-division cynical grumblers.

You misinterpret the word “best” here. It does not mean, “better than anyone else (grumbles and complains)”. Rather, it means “better than they do anything else.”

That’s a pretty silly argument — the only party the hypocrisy charge could conceivably apply to is HBO, not really (to my knowledge) an object of left-wing adulation to begin with.

“This video has been removed by the user”.

HBO owns Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen’s inauguration performance of Woodie Guthrie’s song.

This land is their land. They don’t even bother to pretend.

I have to admit that the brazenness of restricting access to this particular performance of this particular song on this particular occasion still boggles me. Obviously I need outrage knobs that go up to twelve instead of the standard-issue elevens.

I apologize for trying to politicize a work of art. Those guys all just wanted to make people happy with beautiful music, but people insist on reading messages into it.

However, I for one am glad that he (and not Nixon, say) was in the White House for those 13 days in October, 1962

And I’m equally glad that McCain won’t be sworn in on Tuesday so that he could finish destroying the economy and start wars with a few more countries. Still, at some point we’re going to need something better than merely “least worst” if we’re to to stop our accelerating material and moral decline.

We would have voted for you if it were possible, Steve LaBonne. I swear we would have.

We would have voted for you if it were possible, Steve LaBonne. I swear we would have.

Good God, I should hope not. Anyway, if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve. ;)

Liberals’ hopes were also raised in 1964 by winning a huge victory and passing a wide variety of leftist and center-left legislation.

There was a very specific, and very sad, reason why that was possible. Let’s just say that no matter the potential gain to the country I don’t want to see Biden taking office the way LBJ did and riding a similar wave of sentiment.

How many times has Pete Seeger loaned his banjo to Jonah Goldberg? ZERO TIMES.

We would have voted for you if it were possible, Steve LaBonne. I swear we would have.

Oh yeah? Well, didja vote for Nader, at least?

My father in law drove a delivery truck when he was fourteen to help feed his family. It’s totoally disturbing to see that we are back in the same economic climate. I do a lot a of temp work, and I’m working with single mothers whose fourteen or fifteen year old kids are working not for pocket money or college money but to put food on the table.

Pete Seeger is a national treasure and shouldn’t be out in this weather, but he sure seemed up to the job. That’s one heck of a voice that his grandson has, by the way. I’ll keep replaying it until HBO yanks it. Wow.

No, the verse sung by Seeger is the original verse, not the whitewashed (but still upsetting to the Right) version with “no trespassing.” Here it is:

A great high wall there, that tried to stop me—
A great big sign there, said “Private Property”
While on the other side, it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me

Seeger also modified the “relief office” verse to change the last line to “whistling.” I don’t know why he wanted it watered down; the original words are much sharper: “Is this land made for you and me?”

It did my soul a world of good to hear it, even so. Thank you, Pete.

Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I think it’s extremely naive to downplay the huge role played by the way that LBJ came into office, and the tide of sentiment that created.

And Obama certainly MIGHT be powerful enough to produce real progress, though one should never underestimate Harry Reid’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. However, it sure looks as though Obama isn’t even going to try, preferring to be the safe “bipartisan” centrist. (Only that’s not at all safe in the condition we’re in.)

A great high wall there, that tried to stop me—
A great big sign there, said “Private Property”
While on the other side, it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me.

The sheer volume in numbers of people listening to Tao Rodriguez sing, and watching Pete Seeger lead, is a testament to the meaning this has, to the unifying power of working together, instead of giving in to cynicism.

It’s no problem to me, honest, that Pete gets a couple of lyrics wrong, or that he’s a step slower than he used to be in leading out the words to a song. After all, he himself says he can hardly remember anything, about Odetta, or song lyrics or anything. I’d say that he does right well for a nearly-90.

You go, Pete. And … you go Tao. Those guys were a good example of culture for my kids, who are 3 and almost 10 and love to sing. The younger one asked for “this land is my land, and your land,” he asked for Pete Seeger, whom we sing about in lullabies. He’s got something to grow on, and so do we all, until we’re dead. Or cynical.

Also? Doesn’t matter if German TV thinks that Bruce is singing the high hard tones that Tao makes (that sound like his granddaddy of old). Doesn’t matter whether they call it an Amtsantritt, or the slightly more sinister-sounding Amtseinfuehrung. They’re all watching, and many, many people worldwide are willing to hand in their Cynic’s Union cards for something more wide and inclusive. That’s a good thing. Eh?

If you search for ‘Pete Seeger’ on youtube, you can find a video of the performance that is still up, or was a few minutes ago.

Shucks. I think HBO has a lot to learn about bit torrent and peer-to-peer.

A great firewall there
Tried to stop me
Prevented access
through Firefox and IE
But via bit torrent
it says “Download is complete”

That ‘net was made for you & me.

That ‘net was made for you & me.

But I wouldn’t bet the farm on its staying that way much longer. Because Big Telecom and Big Content both think, “this net was made for me me me!” and they can buy the politicians who can make it so.

That’s why Arlo loves him some Ron Paul.

Right up at the top it was mentioned (as if factual) that Woody was a member of the Communist Party. Not true, not true! What is true is that he wrote “Woody Sez” as a weekly column in the publication of the American Communist Party, but refused to actually join. The Party really wanted him to spout the official dogma and he wouldn’t. At the Joe McCarthy hearings, he said, “I ain’t never been a Communist, but I been in the red all my life!” They couldn’t prove anything against him. Seeger and many others tried to stand up to the HUAC hacks and were severely treated because of it; Seeger was banned from television appearances for many years until the Smothers Brothers brought him on their show in 1968. They didn’t last long after expressing their political side, either.

This version is still up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0wiOHc9tI&

I was there, and tears ran down my face.

At least you didn’t get an erection.