My, but isn't this article full of vitrol and fear. But then again, this is what Woody and others, present company included, have worked with all their lives. And there is room for every opinion, even the close-minded ones.
Well, "There's more than one way a song gets around" ...even the "other" verses!

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/terencejeffrey/tj20040721.shtml

Kerry's socialist theme song
Terence Jeffrey (archive)

July 21, 2004

I grew up in a family of 11 children in the days before SUVs. So we took our road trips in two-car caravans led by a steamy station wagon with crank-handle windows and hot vinyl upholstery.

That wagon was always packed with obstreperous kids singing obnoxious songs. But one song we were emphatically discouraged from singing has now emerged as a theme song for John Kerry's presidential campaign.

My father loved popular music and never ceased being interested in it. In the 1960s, he happily escorted my older sisters to see the Beatles. A decade later, he bought me tickets for the Grateful Dead. But if we started singing one particular song when he was at the wheel, he nearly drove off the road.

"That song," he would say, "has a socialist message." The song was Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."

John Kerry has been singing this tune lately on his own road trips, and it will be no surprise if someone sings it at next week's Democratic convention.

"Recently," The New York Times reported last month, "Kerry has been strumming his guitar on the campaign plane and rehearsing 'This Land is Your Land,' as if to underline at some future event that his campaign is a protest against a presidency that has created a land where the rich get the breaks and the rest get squeezed."

Sure enough, at a recent fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall, the candidate strapped on a guitar and joined wealthy entertainers in a sing-along of the tune. He also sang it at a Wisconsin rally.

This led me to research why my dad may have despised it.

Guthrie wrote the song, I learned, as a rebuttal to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." The liner notes to the CD "Woody Guthrie -- This Land is Your Land" (produced by the Smithsonian Institution) say: "Woody's stated reason for writing it is possibly open to criticism -- he said he was tired of hearing Kate Smith, one of the nation's most popular singers during the 1930s, sing 'God Bless America.' So he voiced a different perspective on the United States, ending each verse with 'God blessed America for me.'"

Guthrie's "different perspective" was indeed socialist. Two verses of his original lyrics were:

"Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me/A sign was painted said: Private Property./But on the back side it didn't say nothing -- /God blessed America for me."

"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple/By the Relief Office I saw my people -- /As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if/God blessed America for me."

Guthrie's first public recording of the song, released in 1951, dropped these verses. The sarcastic hook of "God blessed America for me" was changed to "This land was made for you and me." But the Smithsonian CD includes a rendition with Guthrie singing the lines attacking "private property," and the liner notes say "the 'Private Property' verse became a part of (Woody's son) Arlo Guthrie's and Pete Seeger's renditions of the song."

Guthrie wrote columns for Peoples Daily World, a Communist Party newspaper, but was never a member of the Communist Party. "Guthrie instead served as what the party called a 'fellow traveler,' a nonmember who generally agreed with the Communist Party platform but was not subject to party discipline," writes Ed Cray in his 2004 biography "Ramblin' Man -- The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie."

In 1945, Guthrie scribbled on the flyleaf of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital": "The man that writes our best ballad will read this book from cover to cover . . . I'd like to try and write all of these things down in short words."

"While he was less disciplined than members of the party," writes Cray, "he nonetheless followed the party line, even to the extent of endorsing Communist North Korea's invasion of autocratic South Korea."

My father did not back the Communists in Korea. He fought them as a battalion aide surgeon in the 7th Infantry Division.

But my father's roots roughly resemble Guthrie's. Both came of age in the Midwest dust bowl, in the Great Depression, in families that knew real want. Both went West. Both pursued their dreams to professional success -- Guthrie as a folksinger, my father as a doctor.

My father, however, always attributed his success to American freedom, to the system of private enterprise and private property that Guthrie scorned in songs that futilely preached class war to the Greatest Generation.

If John Kerry, a son of privilege, poses as a tax-the-rich populist next week, then starts singing "This Land is Your Land," I suspect my father will be smiling down on him and thinking: He couldn't have picked a more fitting song.

©2004 Creators Syndicate

The link below has a short video of Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews and John Kerry singing This Land is Your Land.
Great song!
http://www.undercover.com.au/news/2004/ ... kerry.html

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living ... henomenon/

From Boston Globe
Candidates for parody

Video clip poking fun at Bush and Kerry is an Internet phenomenon
By Lauren Smiley, Globe Correspondent  |  July 22, 2004

In times of nonstop election bickering and tit-for-tat attacks over values, forget the "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets -- what would Woody Guthrie do?

To the Spiridellis brothers of Santa Monica, Calif., who are longtime fans of the political-protest folk singer, the answer was obvious: Take Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and imagine George Bush and John Kerry singing. Switch up the old saccharine lyrics so that "This land was made for you and me" becomes "This land will surely vote for me." Have Kerry dub Bush a "right-wing nut job," and make Bush shoot back, "You're a liberal sissy." Find someone who can imitate their voices. Add computer animation depicting Bush as a cowboy and Kerry as a wiener in a bun. Then post the whole thing on the Web and make it available for download.

The old crooner himself would probably smirk.

The two-minute video, which Evan and Gregg Spiridellis posted on their website JibJab.com on July 9, has reached Internet phenomenon status and has proved the computer animation clip -- long reserved as a forum for raunchy office distractions, baby dances, and obnoxious birthday cards -- can serve as a viable forum for political commentary. In the first week it was available, it was downloaded by more than 5 million people -- more than downloaded the Spiridellises' famous 2000 election rap between Bush and Al Gore. After Fox News aired clips from the video last week, JibJab exceeded its bandwidth for a few hours but got back up and running.

Then came this week's media blitz. Parts of the video have shown up on the "Today" show, "The Early Show," MSNBC, CNBC, and "NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw." The attention again overwhelmed JibJab.com. "We had like a core meltdown," said Evan Spiridellis. "Our traffic just shut down our servers." The clip is now also hosted by atomfilms.com.

Evan Spiridellis, who runs a web-animation studio with his brother, says they are awed by the attention -- and they await confirmation to appear Monday on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." "The past three days have been insane," he said. "We're just two guys in a warehouse. It's been quite a ride." Evan did the animation, and his brother wrote the script. A friend did all the voices, and Evan's wife performed the music.

Accolades have been pouring in. Although they had been asking for $2.99 to download the clip, the video can now be viewed for free. Yet someone mailed a check for $100, and another made a $300 donation through PayPal. The e-mails have come "in the thousands."

"The best e-mails," Evan Spiridellis said, "are people that have said, `I've sent it to my liberal wacko friends and my right-wing nut-job friends, and we can all laugh about it.' "

Indeed, on Internet message boards, there's the partisan: "I hope this & michael moore's film will put the final bow on Buddy bush's campaign!"

The appreciative: "We need a little humor in our messed up politics . . . why not . . . the rest of our politics is a joke anyway."

And the offended (apparently, also the spelling challenged): "Do you really need the sware words in the song! . . . I would like to be able to watch something and not have to cover my kids' eyes and plug there ears."

True, the jabs sometimes veer toward a PG-13 rating, but the video is an equal-opportunity offender. Kerry sings about Bush: "You can't say `nuclear' -- that really scares me. Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy." Bush retorts: "You have more waffles than a house of pancakes. You offer flip-flops; I offer tax breaks."

Evan Spiridellis wouldn't say which candidate he supports, but that isn't the point. "There's a lot of big issues out there, and it feels like a lot of time is spent talking about insignificant barbs about each other," he said. "This wasn't about taking sides or putting out propaganda. Our goal was to do something that will make people laugh."

So what would Woody Guthrie think of all this?

Michael Smith, the volunteer office manager at the New York-based Woody Guthrie Foundation & Archives, says his office tries to "stay out of the political fray." He did offer that, considering Guthrie's support of the third-party candidate Henry Wallace in the 1948 election, the singer probably would have voted for Nader. 
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
 

You can see the reworked version of This Land... here:
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/static/jibjabdaughter.html?id=this_land&preplay=1

The Boston Globe on July 28, 2004 page c4 (link below)
has an article about an Oregon delegate going around the convention doing This Land. Part of the article I have posted below.

Rock star riffs around town for ticket
By Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff  |  July 28, 2004

From the Oregon breakfast to the youth vote caucus

From the hip-hop summit to the VH1 crew

From the Fleet floor mosh pit to the late-night soirees

This town is made for Art, you see

With apologies to Woody Guthrie, whose playlist is in heavy rotation this week, ''This Land Is Your Land" could stand some freshening if it's to serve as a Democratic anthem for Campaign 2004. And nobody is better suited to that task than Art Alexakis, the Oregon delegate and rock-star politico, who's been all over Boston this week, roaming and rambling from soundstage to photo-op in a passionately partisan crusade to take back the White House from the geeky old GOP.

Yesterday marked day three of the singer's Hub-a-palooza tour, and it was not demonstrably different from the previous two. It kicked off with a delegation breakfast at the Royal Sonesta, where Alexakis, of the band Everclear, followed George McGovern, Dennis Kucinich, and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg to the podium. On three hours of sleep, he sang ''This Land" with reasonable gusto and walked off to a standing ovation. Then came an encore performance at a Youth Caucus rally at the Hynes Convention Center, where Alexakis was mobbed by young fans and reporters everywhere he went. Tagging along was a VH1 crew that's filming an upcoming special on politics and pop culture, using Alexakis as a centerpiece. In a coup for the filmmakers, Vanessa and Alexandra Kerry dropped by for a brief schmoozefest with the multitattooed singer........

Before heading to the FleetCenter for last night's session, Alexakis stopped by a Rock The Vote party at a chic Newbury Street clothing store. There were more media interviews and earnest talk about registering young people to vote. And yes, there was yet more Woody Guthrie. He also sang a song titled ''Wonderful," though, which he dedicated to George W. Bush. ''I wish I could count to 10," Alexakis crooned soulfully, ''and make everything wonderful again."

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles ... et?mode=PF

Posted below is the opening paragraph in an article in The Boston Globe
That starts out talking about "This Land"

"Music now finding a much louder stage in politics
By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff  |  July 28, 2004

At the opening night of the convention on Monday, a pumped-up FleetCenter full of delegates was led by the country's nine female Democratic senators and a children's choir in a rousing singalong of "This Land is Your Land." It was a decidedly Democratic moment: Woody Guthrie's parody of "God Bless America" is an anthem of inclusiveness, a working man's vision of a nation where the poor and middle classes enjoy the same rights and opportunities as the rich. That theme resonated in speeches given later in the evening by presidents Clinton and Carter. It will surely be a hallmark of the Kerry-Edwards platform. And odds are good that if Ronald Reagan had done his homework he wouldn't have used the song in his 1984 re-election campaign."

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles ... cs?mode=PF

Slashdot has been following the story of Ludlow Music Inc. suing Jib Jab for using "This land is your land" in their parody/satire.

There is definately something not right in the world when something like this happens. You can read about it here:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/31/2010246

I wonder if the Guthrie's can do anything about this?

hi Shivan, and welcome to the boards!

Thanks for the link to the slashdot message boards. There is some interesting reading there!

My personal thoughts on the subject: Woody said to let people do what they want with his song... all he wanted was to write it... so I think he would be very happy that someone used his song to create something new... isn't that part of what the "folk process" is all about, anyway?

In the August 1, 2004 issue of the NYNewsday newspaper on page A52 there is an article by Jon Burlingame titled "A weird grab-bag of a playlist".

For the most part he was not happy with the music selections although this positive note was in the article:
"A handful of musical choices were smart, such as Monday's acapella rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This land is Your Land" by a multiracial children's chorus and Wednesday's appearance by John Mellencamp singing "Small Town".

He also had nice things to say about the appearances of Willie Nelson and Carole King on Thursday night.

...well this debate on jibjab has baffled me a bit......haven't quite decided how i feel about it.....been wonderin who is Ludlow Music anyway?......seems like Woody's kids oughta own his songs...or his archives...... notice Ludlow is on some of Arlo's music, too....anybody know who owns the company?.....

....one of the problems for me is that it's never quite that simple in my mind.....sure it's funny, put out there for eveyone, innocent enough, makes a great point.... all seems like woody-like ideals......
...but..
...when i just clicked on the website, i got a personal greeting Hola Kathleen Johnson on the left window asking me to donate for further projects by jib jab .... checked that out...it's an Amazon developed program to enable donations to websites....picks up your name ..... is that Woody-like?....then when i watched the video again, had to sit through a promo for a new movie....
....seems like it's gettin a somewhat commercial.....now i can't woody-mind read...but it disturbs me some....if they're gonna make money, why shouldn't they pay some???...or is that not the issue...

JibJab can continue... More here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... erry_spoof