Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, performing at Sunday's concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images)
And see Pete and Bruce on YouTube
Sunday 18 January 2009
by: Tommy Stevenson, Tuscaloosa News
At the conclusion of today's concert for president-elect Barack Obama 89-year-old Pete Seeger joined Bruce Springsteen for a sing-along with perhaps half a million people of Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land, which I dare say practically everyone in the country knows from childhood.
But sly old Pete, who actually hoboed with Woody during the Depression and Dust Bowl, had the crowd sing the song as it was actually written, as not only a celebration of this great land, but as a demand for workers' and people's rights. That is, he restored the verses that have been censored from the song over the years to make it less political:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.
(Actually, this verse is quite well-known. Lee Hays sang it when the Weavers were still going.-ED)
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
The "relief office," of course, refers to the ad hoc soup bowls and such set up during the Depression before the New Deal began to get the social security net we have all depended upon since the 1930s in place.
Seeger, like Guthrie, has been a controversial figure at times during his life, questioned by the witch hunting committees of Congress in the 1950s, black listed, and even banded from television as late as the late 1960s.
But while he hasn't got much of a voice left anymore and did not attempt to play his banjo today (not true, as you can see from the video.-ED), it was wonderful to see the gleam in his subversive eye as he did his call and response with the throngs in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Somewhere Woody - and Leadbelly, and Sonny and Cisco and the rest of the great balladeers of that bygone era - are smiling tonight.
This Land Is Your Land Chorus: As I was walking a ribbon of highway Chorus I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps Chorus The sun comes shining as I was strolling Chorus As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there Chorus In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple Chorus (2x)
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie
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 saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
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 wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
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.
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