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From: Joe Z
Email:
Remote Name: 12.222.61.37
Date: 04-Aug-2002
Time: 11:45 PM
Hi Bill,
Hope all is well with you and Linda.
It's interesting that "This Land Is Your Land" was Woody Guthrie's workingman's response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." Hence his initial title was, as you said, "God Bless America For Me."
The famous opening line of "This Land" was a rallying cry for the millions of Americans who'd lost it all in the '30s, particulary the Dust Bowl refugees. Guthrie lived in the northern Texas (Pampa) panhandle in 1935 when the worst dust storm of the Dust Bowl years touched down. People were talking about the end of the world. The tremendous destruction that followed added to the 35 million acres of American farmland, which had already been destroyed.
This was the principle cause of the migration of 500,000 "Okies" along Route 66 to the greener pastures of southern California. Guthrie went with these refugees, singing his songs. The story of the Okies, as told by Mr. Steinbeck, is a great account of man's inhumanity to man. (After WWII, my parents travelled from Oklahoma to Long Beach, California - with all their possessions tied to the top of the car.)
Yes, Woody Guthrie was mighty pissed off when he penned, "This Land Is Your Land." He was in due course billed as a communist, and in 1943, he was banned from radio. When asked if he was a commie, he replied, I"ve always been in the red."
Joe
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