This Land Is Your Land (Adapted Narrative & Lyrics)

Unpublished

For NATIONAL SING OUT FOR EARTH DAY we might consider changing the chorus to This Land Is Your Land to sing:

This world is your world
This world is my world
From the Arctic to Antarctica
From the Himalayas to the Sierras
This world is made for you and me

We might consider bringing in Pete Seeger’s inclusive verse for all creation:

Woodland and grassland and river shoreline,
To everything living, even little microbes,
Fin, fur, and feather, we’re all here together,
This world is made for you and me

Or possibly the following “missing verses” from Utah Phillips.

As I was walking
An endless breadline
My landlord gave me
A two week deadline
The local paper
Printed a better headline
This land is not for you and me

This land is their land
It is not our land
From your plush apartment
To your Cadillac car land
From your wall street office
To your Hollywood starland
This land is not for you and me

So take your slogan
And kindly stow it
If this is our land
You’d never know it
Lets get together
And overthrow it
This land was made for you and me

And then there’s the First Nation perspective:

This land is your land, but it once was my land,
Until we sold you Manhattan Island.
You pushed our Nations to the reservations;
This land was stole by you from me.

And for the ongoing class struggle from Woody:

One bright sunny morning,
in the shadow of the steeple,
By the relief office I saw my people,
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling
This land was made for you and me.

Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,
Was a great big sign said, “Private Property,”
But on the other side, it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As we go walking that freedom highway,
Nobody living can make me turn back,
This land was made for you and me.

And one more from Pete:

Maybe you’ve been working as hard as you’re able,
But you’ve just got crumbs from the rich man’s table,
And maybe you’re thinking, was it truth or fable,
That this land was made for you and me.

I, too, started working on a new version of “This Land Is Your Land” by replacing that line all together with “Mother Earth What Have We Done” for an Earth Day celebration a few years back.
I roamed and rambled and follow my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice come sounding
Mother Earth what have we done

We took their land. Poisoned their waters.
We killed their sons. We raped their daughters.
And then led them into the slaughter
Mother Earth what have we done

For the price of oil we send our children
Off to war to invade sovereign countries
To come back home without work or money
Mother Earth what have we done
To these woodlands, grasslands, and shorelines
Fin, fur, and feather protected for all time
In body, soul, heart and mind
Mother Earth what have we done

When the sun shines, when we go strolling
And the wheat fields wave, and the dust clouds rolling
A voice keeps chanting, when the fog comes lifting
Mother Earth what have we done

With big high walls that try to stop us
On the front painted, “No trespassing”
But on the other side can’t read nothing
Mother Earth what have we done

We have no choice but to stand together
In these times of stormy weather
If we don’t, times won’t get better
Mother Earth what have we done

On bright sunny mornings, in the shadow of the steeple,
By the relief office I see my people,
They stand there hungry, I stand there wondering
Mother Earth what have we done

Nobody living can ever stop us
As we go biking this freedom highway,
Nobody living can make me turn back,
Mother Earth what have we done

We’ve been working as hard as we’re able,
For the crumbs from the rich man’s table,
We’ve been thinking, is it truth or fable,
Mother Earth what have we done

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