this land is your land

On the eve of a watershed moment in our country's history, 24 hours before Barack Obama takes the oath of office, I awoke this morning thinking of Woody Guthrie.  

A young man from Okemah, Oklahoma, who had roamed and rambled through the country in the '30s with his guitar, Woody wrote a song in 1940 that's right up there with "America the Beautiful."  Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen sang Woody's song at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. Close your eyes and imagine you're hearing the words for the first time.  Now imagine it's 1940 and it's Woody Guthrie's voice and guitar.  The song begins with its refrain:

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

Each verse answers an unspoken question.  Each verse takes us with Woody on his journey through America.

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me and endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

And then there's that voice that Woody sang about, a voice that appears in most of the verses:
I've roamed and rambled and I've 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
The sun came shining as I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting as the fog was lifting
This land was made for you and me

Like "American the Beautiful," with its purple mountains and amber waves of grain, Woody's song gives us enduring images of our land. The "dust clouds" remind us that Woody traveled with the migrant workers who fled from the Dust Bowl of the '30s.  The last verse, however, is set in the city, amid the unemployment and doubt of the Great Depression:

In the square of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

The song doesn't end there, however, because the last verse is followed by the great refrain, sung twice this time, or as many times as we like. We can just keep singing that refrain until our voices give out and we have to get some work done.  

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

I hear that in his speech tomorrow Barack is going to ask us all to get to work.  The song will still be there, of course, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that, and as long as we keep singing it, or hearing it in our heads.  And if the tune gets stuck there, well, there are a lot worse songs to be playing over and over.

Woody got it right.  "This land's still made for you and me."  I believe that America belongs to those who love it, to those who treasure its beauty, to those who roll up their sleeves and work to make it better.