God’s Land Is Your Land

The “Dust Bowl Troubadour” was born more than a century ago this week: Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, better known simply as Woody Guthrie. His songs are legion, his prickly reputation incomparable, and his influence as far reaching as any American musician who has ever lived.

My favorite Woody Guthrie song, aside from the hilarious “There’ll Be No Church Tonight,” is his most well known tune, “This Land Is Your Land.” We usually only sing the first verse: “This land is your land. This land is my land. From California to the New York Island. From the Red Wood forests, to the Gulf Stream waters, this land was made for you and me.”

It’s a tune that sounds so patriotic and uplifting, but that really wasn’t Woody’s intent when he wrote the piece. It was, as were so many of his songs, a protest. As the United States was finally emerging from…