Celebrating America and Its Song

“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.”  -- Woody Guthrie

American folk music has produced few artists as gifted and complex as Woody Guthrie. Guthrie wrote nearly 3,000 song lyrics, published two novels, created artworks, and authored numerous manuscripts, poems, prose, and plays and hundreds of letters and news articles (most found housed in the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York).

"There's a feeling in music and it carries you back down the road you have traveled and makes you travel it again,” he said.  “Sometimes when I hear music I think back over my days, and a feeling that is joy and pain swells like clouds taking all kinds of shapes in my mind – the splash of an alligator, the rain dripping on dry leaves, a long and lonesome train whistling down, a truck horn blowing, a street corner speaker, kids squawling along the streets, or the silent wail of wind and sky caressing the breasts of the desert.”

Woody Guthrie's songs continue to speak to us all about thoughts, ideas, and feelings that are as relevant and meaningful today as when he lived them, and it just seemed right to remember him again as we head toward the 4th of July.

 

Woody Guthrie

And here is a link to America’s song. Enjoy!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4H0k8TDgw