这是你的土地 (1945)

"This Land Is Your Land" is a song by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. One of the United States' most famous folk songs, its lyrics were written in 1940 in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Its melody is based on a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire". When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically called his song "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land".

The popular short version was first released on the 10-inch album This Land Is My Land: American Work Songs (Folkways FP 27) in 1951. However, the song itself became well known due to that it was copyrighted and included in many songbooks from the mid-1940s through the 1950s.

In 1989, a 1947 recording on the Asch record label was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In 2002, "This Land Is Your Land" was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2021, it was listed at No. 229 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time," and in 2025, it was listed at No. 11 on its list of "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time." In June 2026, CBS News included the song in its list of the 250 essential American songs of the past 250 years.

Melody

Guthrie's melody was very similar to the melody of "Oh, My Loving Brother", a Baptist gospel hymn that had been recorded by the Carter Family as "When the World's On Fire" and had inspired their "Little Darlin', Pal of Mine." He used the same melody for the chorus and the verses.

Lyrics

Original 1940 lyrics

The original lyrics were composed on February 23, 1940, in Guthrie's room at the Hanover House hotel at 43rd St. and 6th Ave. (101 West 43rd St.) in New York. The line "This land was made for you and me" does not appear in the original manuscript at the end of each verse, but is implied by Guthrie's writing of those words at the top of the page and by his subsequent singing of the line with those words.

According to Joe Klein, after Guthrie composed it, "he completely forgot about the song, and didn't do anything with it for another five years."

1944 version lyrics

In 1944, during World War II, Guthrie prepared another version, which drops the two verses that are critical of the United States from the original: verse four, regarding private property, and verse six, regarding hunger. By 1944, after Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Guthrie supported U.S. involvement in Europe.

Confirmation of two other verses

The April 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the "private property" verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian who were interviewed as part of the History Channel program Save Our History – Save our Sounds. The 1944 recording with this fourth verse was released in 1997, on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.

Woodyguthrie.org also has a variant.

A 1945 pamphlet which omitted the last two verses has caused some question as to whether the original song did in fact contain the full text. The original manuscript confirms both of these verses.

As with other folk songs, it was sung with different words at various times, although the motives for this particular change of lyrics may involve the possible political interpretations of the verses. Recordings of Guthrie have him singing the verses with different words.

The verses critical of America are not often performed in schools or official functions. They can be best interpreted as a protest against the vast income inequalities that exist in the United States, and against the sufferings of millions during the Great Depression. The US, Guthrie insists, was made—and could still be made—for "you and me". This interpretation is consistent with such other Guthrie songs as "Pretty Boy Floyd" and Guthrie's lifelong struggle for social justice.