Chords for This Land Is Your Land (the true story)
Tempo:
124.35 bpm
Chords used:
D
A
Em
G
F#m
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
I want to tell you a little story about a man from Oklahoma.
[E] Born July [Em] 14th of 1912 in Okema, [A] Oklahoma, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, [D] wrote
over a thousand American folk songs in his short life.
And you know what?
He didn't [Em] use an original melody for any one of those songs.
Not Woody [A] Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie was the greatest parodist of the 20th century.
He took [D] songs he already knew, and he changed the words around, [Em] and he made up new words
to old tunes, and he did it over a thousand [E] times.
And most of [A] those tunes he borrowed from the 78 RPM recordings of his [D] favorite band,
the Carter family.
So here's a true story about Woody.
[E] Woody was in California, [Em]
February of [F#m] 1940, and he decided he was going to hitchhike across
the United States and go to New York [D] City without a jacket, a suitcase, or a guitar.
So he stuck out his [Em] thumb, and he hitchhiked across this country, and as he traveled, [A] he
heard a brand new song on the radio that had just been written by a man, a [D] Russian immigrant
who wrote popular music in the United States named Irving Berlin.
[Em] This song was a brand new song in 1939.
Kate [A] Smith had recorded it, and it was on every radio station and jukebox, and Woody
heard it so many times on the trip across [D] the country.
You know the song I mean, the one that goes,
God bless [F#m]
America, [A] land that [D] I love.
[G] Stand beside her [D] and guide her through the night with [A] the light [D] from above.
Well, Woody got so sick and tired of hearing this song over [Em] and over and over again on
that trip across the country.
And then at one [A] point, he heard a disc jockey on the radio mention that that song might
become the [D] national anthem of the United States, and that was all Woody could take.
He was so [Em] upset, he made a vow to himself that when he got to New York City, he was
going to write another song about the United States.
It said all the things about [D] this country, God bless America, did he say.
So when he got to New York [Em] City, he stayed at the home of Will and Herta Gere.
Remember Will Gere, [A] the great Shakespearean actor?
Man who [D] played Grandpa Walton on the Waltons at the end of his career?
Well, you know, most people [Em] who had Woody Guthrie as a house guest would find that he
would sleep on the couch with his boots on [A] and wreck the couch and leave it dirty.
[D] And most families wouldn't fall for that more than once.
But Will Gere thought that [Em] Woody Guthrie could do no wrong.
Woody spent a couple of [A] weeks at their brownstone in New York sleeping on the couch.
And there he [D] borrowed from Will Gere's wife Herta a pre-World War II [Em] Brazilian rosewood Martin guitar.
And he carried [A] it down the steps of the brownstone out into [F#m] a rainstorm.
And Herta Gere said [D] to herself, I'll bet I'll never see that guitar again.
And she was certainly correct.
Woody walked through the snow [Em] to a little hotel at the corner of 43rd Street and 6th
Avenue [A] called Hanover House.
And there in that little fleabag [F#m] hotel with a [D] yellow pencil like the kids use in their classrooms.
[E] He proceeded to write [Em] that song about the United States.
[A] He wrote a six verse poem.
He made the first verse a chorus.
He appropriated the tune [D] from an old Christian hymn that he'd heard on a Carter family recording.
And he put that song in a drawer with a bunch of other things he'd written because, you
know, if you're [A] going to write a thousand American folk songs in 20 short years, you gotta hustle.
But you know, Woody was a sick man.
[Em] It didn't bother him much at that time in 1940.
But Woody had something that you call Huntington's disease [A] at that time in history.
They [D] didn't even have a name for it.
But it got worse and worse.
And [Em] by May 29th of 1956, the [A] day that the New York City policemen found Woody wandering
on the freeways, they took him to a hospital.
Woody Guthrie spent the last 13 years of his [Em] life laying in a hospital bed, fighting that
Huntington's [A] disease, a disease that takes [A] away the use of your arms and legs and your
fingers and toes.
[D] And they said, lay that in that hospital bed, fighting that disease [Em] with all his might,
that song that he'd written about the United States.
[A] It went around the world without ever being played on the radio or the [D] television, mind you.
It has become one of the best known English language folk songs in the whole wide world.
[Em] That means whatever language you speak, whatever country you live in, if you know one [A] verse
or one chorus of a song in the English language other than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Old
McDonald and Happy Birthday, you [D] probably know the one Woody made up at Hanover House.
At the [Em] corner of 43rd Street and 6th Avenue in February of [A] 1940, just one long block from
that New York Public Library, it's the one [D] that goes like this.
This land [G] is your land, this [D] land is my land.
[A] From [A] California to the [D] New York [D] Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the [D] Gulf Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you.
Now [Em]
[A] I'm on the road about 200 days a year.
I go from the Everglades [Em] in Florida right up to the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
[A] And I've never met a kindergarten teacher on any campus in the United [D] States who doesn't
share this song with his or her students.
And that's [Em] why all the kids in the United States sing along when you start this one.
But you know what?
When Woody wrote this song [A] 69 years ago, it really wasn't a children's [D] song because Woody
had traveled through the United States during the Great [Em] American Depression.
In 1929, the stock market [A] crashed and the banks closed.
And soon, one out of three people in the United States [Bm] didn't have a job.
Those were hard times and there were a lot of hungry people.
[Em] You know, my own grandfather was a carpenter in New York City.
He said that he used to carry a 60-pound toolbox five miles [Dm] each way to the job site in [D] Manhattan
just to save a nickel each way on the subway.
Now you know, [Em] those are hard times when you carry a 60-pound box [A] ten miles every day just
so you'd have one extra dime to buy food for your [D] children.
Well, Woody Guthrie saw those people out of work and went through those hard times.
[A] And he was thinking of them [A] and of Irving Berlin's song, God Bless America, [E] when he
sat down at that desk at Hanover House with that [D] pencil and that [Em] piece of notebook paper
and he wrote the first verse to the [A] song, You Know This Land Is Your Land.
It went like [D] this.
In the [G] shadow of the steeple, I [D] saw my people.
[F#m] By the relief office, I saw [D] my people.
As they [G] stood there hungry, I stood there [F#m] [B] asking, [A] Did God bless America [D] for me?
[Em] [A] When Woody first made up the song, he wanted the chorus to say, it would say, God blessed
America [D] for me.
But he found that This Land Is Your Land was more inclusive to say, [E] this land was [A] made
for you and me.
[D] It falls off your tongue a whole lot easier.
[Em] You know, Woody recorded this song in the 40s for Moash and Folkways [A] Records, but the
record wasn't very widely distributed.
My friend Frank Hamilton [D] told me that the very first time he heard this song played
[Em] was by a mandolin player on Staten Island.
[A] But you know, by 1965, when I was five years old, it seems like everybody in the [D] United
States knew the words to this song.
And when Woody made up [Em] this song, he made up one of the verses that gives you a little
insight into [A] his worldview.
Let me sing it for you now so you [A] know the way he thought about [D] things.
It's the verse that went like this.
As I [G] was a -walkin', I [D] saw a sign there.
And on [F#m] that sign it said, [D] no trespassing.
But on the [G] other side, it didn't say [B] nothin'.
Well, [A] that side was made for you and [D] me.
[G] This land is your land.
This land is my land.
[A] From California to the New [D] York Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the Gulf [F#m] Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you and [D] me.
[Em] [A] [D] Now what most people don't remember is the great spiritual [E] that Woody took the tune [Em] from.
It's an old hymn they used to sing in the church down in [A] Oklahoma.
And it was one that was recorded by the Carter family.
It's the one that went like [D] this.
Oh my [G] darlin' brother, when the world's on fire, [A] do you want God's bosom to be your [D] pillow?
Won't you tide [G] me over in the [D] rock of [B] ages?
[A] Oh rock of ages, cleft [D] for me.
This [F#m] land is your [E] land.
This [G] land is my land.
From California to the New York Islands, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf [D] Stream [Bm] waters,
[Em] this land was [A] made for you and me.
[D] This land [G] is your land.
This land is [D] my land.
From [A] California to the [D] New York Islands, from the Redwood [Em] Forest to the Gulf Stream [F#m] [Bm] waters,
[Em] this land [A] was made for you [D] and me.
[Bm] [Em] This land [A] was made for you [D] and me.
[F#m] [Bm]
[Em] This land was [A] made for you [D] and me.
[G] [D]
[E] Born July [Em] 14th of 1912 in Okema, [A] Oklahoma, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, [D] wrote
over a thousand American folk songs in his short life.
And you know what?
He didn't [Em] use an original melody for any one of those songs.
Not Woody [A] Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie was the greatest parodist of the 20th century.
He took [D] songs he already knew, and he changed the words around, [Em] and he made up new words
to old tunes, and he did it over a thousand [E] times.
And most of [A] those tunes he borrowed from the 78 RPM recordings of his [D] favorite band,
the Carter family.
So here's a true story about Woody.
[E] Woody was in California, [Em]
February of [F#m] 1940, and he decided he was going to hitchhike across
the United States and go to New York [D] City without a jacket, a suitcase, or a guitar.
So he stuck out his [Em] thumb, and he hitchhiked across this country, and as he traveled, [A] he
heard a brand new song on the radio that had just been written by a man, a [D] Russian immigrant
who wrote popular music in the United States named Irving Berlin.
[Em] This song was a brand new song in 1939.
Kate [A] Smith had recorded it, and it was on every radio station and jukebox, and Woody
heard it so many times on the trip across [D] the country.
You know the song I mean, the one that goes,
God bless [F#m]
America, [A] land that [D] I love.
[G] Stand beside her [D] and guide her through the night with [A] the light [D] from above.
Well, Woody got so sick and tired of hearing this song over [Em] and over and over again on
that trip across the country.
And then at one [A] point, he heard a disc jockey on the radio mention that that song might
become the [D] national anthem of the United States, and that was all Woody could take.
He was so [Em] upset, he made a vow to himself that when he got to New York City, he was
going to write another song about the United States.
It said all the things about [D] this country, God bless America, did he say.
So when he got to New York [Em] City, he stayed at the home of Will and Herta Gere.
Remember Will Gere, [A] the great Shakespearean actor?
Man who [D] played Grandpa Walton on the Waltons at the end of his career?
Well, you know, most people [Em] who had Woody Guthrie as a house guest would find that he
would sleep on the couch with his boots on [A] and wreck the couch and leave it dirty.
[D] And most families wouldn't fall for that more than once.
But Will Gere thought that [Em] Woody Guthrie could do no wrong.
Woody spent a couple of [A] weeks at their brownstone in New York sleeping on the couch.
And there he [D] borrowed from Will Gere's wife Herta a pre-World War II [Em] Brazilian rosewood Martin guitar.
And he carried [A] it down the steps of the brownstone out into [F#m] a rainstorm.
And Herta Gere said [D] to herself, I'll bet I'll never see that guitar again.
And she was certainly correct.
Woody walked through the snow [Em] to a little hotel at the corner of 43rd Street and 6th
Avenue [A] called Hanover House.
And there in that little fleabag [F#m] hotel with a [D] yellow pencil like the kids use in their classrooms.
[E] He proceeded to write [Em] that song about the United States.
[A] He wrote a six verse poem.
He made the first verse a chorus.
He appropriated the tune [D] from an old Christian hymn that he'd heard on a Carter family recording.
And he put that song in a drawer with a bunch of other things he'd written because, you
know, if you're [A] going to write a thousand American folk songs in 20 short years, you gotta hustle.
But you know, Woody was a sick man.
[Em] It didn't bother him much at that time in 1940.
But Woody had something that you call Huntington's disease [A] at that time in history.
They [D] didn't even have a name for it.
But it got worse and worse.
And [Em] by May 29th of 1956, the [A] day that the New York City policemen found Woody wandering
on the freeways, they took him to a hospital.
Woody Guthrie spent the last 13 years of his [Em] life laying in a hospital bed, fighting that
Huntington's [A] disease, a disease that takes [A] away the use of your arms and legs and your
fingers and toes.
[D] And they said, lay that in that hospital bed, fighting that disease [Em] with all his might,
that song that he'd written about the United States.
[A] It went around the world without ever being played on the radio or the [D] television, mind you.
It has become one of the best known English language folk songs in the whole wide world.
[Em] That means whatever language you speak, whatever country you live in, if you know one [A] verse
or one chorus of a song in the English language other than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Old
McDonald and Happy Birthday, you [D] probably know the one Woody made up at Hanover House.
At the [Em] corner of 43rd Street and 6th Avenue in February of [A] 1940, just one long block from
that New York Public Library, it's the one [D] that goes like this.
This land [G] is your land, this [D] land is my land.
[A] From [A] California to the [D] New York [D] Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the [D] Gulf Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you.
Now [Em]
[A] I'm on the road about 200 days a year.
I go from the Everglades [Em] in Florida right up to the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
[A] And I've never met a kindergarten teacher on any campus in the United [D] States who doesn't
share this song with his or her students.
And that's [Em] why all the kids in the United States sing along when you start this one.
But you know what?
When Woody wrote this song [A] 69 years ago, it really wasn't a children's [D] song because Woody
had traveled through the United States during the Great [Em] American Depression.
In 1929, the stock market [A] crashed and the banks closed.
And soon, one out of three people in the United States [Bm] didn't have a job.
Those were hard times and there were a lot of hungry people.
[Em] You know, my own grandfather was a carpenter in New York City.
He said that he used to carry a 60-pound toolbox five miles [Dm] each way to the job site in [D] Manhattan
just to save a nickel each way on the subway.
Now you know, [Em] those are hard times when you carry a 60-pound box [A] ten miles every day just
so you'd have one extra dime to buy food for your [D] children.
Well, Woody Guthrie saw those people out of work and went through those hard times.
[A] And he was thinking of them [A] and of Irving Berlin's song, God Bless America, [E] when he
sat down at that desk at Hanover House with that [D] pencil and that [Em] piece of notebook paper
and he wrote the first verse to the [A] song, You Know This Land Is Your Land.
It went like [D] this.
In the [G] shadow of the steeple, I [D] saw my people.
[F#m] By the relief office, I saw [D] my people.
As they [G] stood there hungry, I stood there [F#m] [B] asking, [A] Did God bless America [D] for me?
[Em] [A] When Woody first made up the song, he wanted the chorus to say, it would say, God blessed
America [D] for me.
But he found that This Land Is Your Land was more inclusive to say, [E] this land was [A] made
for you and me.
[D] It falls off your tongue a whole lot easier.
[Em] You know, Woody recorded this song in the 40s for Moash and Folkways [A] Records, but the
record wasn't very widely distributed.
My friend Frank Hamilton [D] told me that the very first time he heard this song played
[Em] was by a mandolin player on Staten Island.
[A] But you know, by 1965, when I was five years old, it seems like everybody in the [D] United
States knew the words to this song.
And when Woody made up [Em] this song, he made up one of the verses that gives you a little
insight into [A] his worldview.
Let me sing it for you now so you [A] know the way he thought about [D] things.
It's the verse that went like this.
As I [G] was a -walkin', I [D] saw a sign there.
And on [F#m] that sign it said, [D] no trespassing.
But on the [G] other side, it didn't say [B] nothin'.
Well, [A] that side was made for you and [D] me.
[G] This land is your land.
This land is my land.
[A] From California to the New [D] York Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the Gulf [F#m] Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you and [D] me.
[Em] [A] [D] Now what most people don't remember is the great spiritual [E] that Woody took the tune [Em] from.
It's an old hymn they used to sing in the church down in [A] Oklahoma.
And it was one that was recorded by the Carter family.
It's the one that went like [D] this.
Oh my [G] darlin' brother, when the world's on fire, [A] do you want God's bosom to be your [D] pillow?
Won't you tide [G] me over in the [D] rock of [B] ages?
[A] Oh rock of ages, cleft [D] for me.
This [F#m] land is your [E] land.
This [G] land is my land.
From California to the New York Islands, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf [D] Stream [Bm] waters,
[Em] this land was [A] made for you and me.
[D] This land [G] is your land.
This land is [D] my land.
From [A] California to the [D] New York Islands, from the Redwood [Em] Forest to the Gulf Stream [F#m] [Bm] waters,
[Em] this land [A] was made for you [D] and me.
[Bm] [Em] This land [A] was made for you [D] and me.
[F#m] [Bm]
[Em] This land was [A] made for you [D] and me.
[G] [D]
Key:
D
A
Em
G
F#m
D
A
Em
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ I want to tell you a little story about a man from Oklahoma.
[E] Born July [Em] 14th of 1912 in Okema, [A] Oklahoma, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, [D] wrote
over a thousand American folk songs in his short life.
And you know what?
He didn't [Em] use an original melody for any one of those songs.
Not Woody [A] Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie was the greatest parodist of the 20th century.
He took [D] songs he already knew, and he changed the words around, [Em] and he made up new words
to old tunes, and he did it over a thousand [E] times.
And most of [A] those tunes he borrowed from the 78 RPM recordings of his [D] favorite band,
the Carter family.
So here's a true story about Woody.
[E] Woody was in California, [Em] _
February of [F#m] 1940, and he decided he was going to hitchhike across
the United States and go to New York [D] City without a jacket, a suitcase, or a guitar.
So he stuck out his [Em] thumb, and he hitchhiked across this country, and as he traveled, [A] he
heard a brand new song on the radio that had just been written by a man, a [D] Russian immigrant
who wrote popular music in the United States named Irving Berlin.
[Em] This song was a brand new song in 1939.
Kate [A] Smith had recorded it, and it was on every radio station and jukebox, and Woody
heard it so many times on the trip across [D] the country.
You know the song I mean, the one that goes,
God bless _ [F#m]
America, _ _ [A] land that [D] I love.
[G] Stand beside her [D] and guide her through the night with [A] the light [D] from above.
Well, Woody got so sick and tired of hearing this song over [Em] and over and over again on
that trip across the country.
And then at one [A] point, he heard a disc jockey on the radio mention that that song might
become the [D] national anthem of the United States, and that was all Woody could take.
He was so [Em] upset, he made a vow to himself that when he got to New York City, he was
going to write another song about the United States.
It said all the things about [D] this country, God bless America, did he say.
So when he got to New York [Em] City, he stayed at the home of Will and Herta Gere.
Remember Will Gere, [A] the great Shakespearean actor?
Man who [D] played Grandpa Walton on the Waltons at the end of his career?
Well, you know, most people [Em] who had Woody Guthrie as a house guest would find that he
would sleep on the couch with his boots on [A] and wreck the couch and leave it dirty.
[D] And most families wouldn't fall for that more than once.
But Will Gere thought that [Em] Woody Guthrie could do no wrong.
Woody spent a couple of [A] weeks at their brownstone in New York sleeping on the couch.
And there he [D] borrowed from Will Gere's wife Herta _ a pre-World War II [Em] Brazilian rosewood Martin guitar.
And he carried [A] it down the steps of the brownstone out into [F#m] a rainstorm.
And Herta Gere said [D] to herself, I'll bet I'll never see that guitar again.
And she was certainly correct.
Woody walked through the snow [Em] to a little hotel at the corner of 43rd Street and 6th
Avenue [A] called Hanover House.
And there in that little fleabag [F#m] hotel with a [D] yellow pencil like the kids use in their classrooms.
[E] He proceeded to write [Em] that song about the United States.
[A] He wrote a six verse poem.
He made the first verse a chorus.
He appropriated the tune [D] from an old Christian hymn that he'd heard on a Carter family recording.
And he put that song in a drawer with a bunch of other things he'd written because, you
know, if you're [A] going to write a thousand American folk songs in 20 short years, you gotta hustle.
But you know, Woody was a sick man.
[Em] It didn't bother him much at that time in 1940.
But Woody had something that you call Huntington's disease [A] at that time in history.
They [D] didn't even have a name for it.
But it got worse and worse.
And [Em] by May 29th of 1956, the [A] day that the New York City policemen found Woody wandering
on the freeways, they took him to a hospital.
Woody Guthrie spent the last 13 years of his [Em] life laying in a hospital bed, fighting that
Huntington's [A] disease, a disease that takes [A] away the use of your arms and legs and your
fingers and toes.
[D] And they said, lay that in that hospital bed, fighting that disease [Em] with all his might,
that song that he'd written about the United States.
[A] It went around the world without ever being played on the radio or the [D] television, mind you.
It has become one of the best known English language folk songs in the whole wide world.
[Em] That means whatever language you speak, whatever country you live in, if you know one [A] verse
or one chorus of a song in the English language other than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Old
McDonald and Happy Birthday, you [D] probably know the one Woody made up at Hanover House.
At the [Em] corner of 43rd Street and 6th Avenue in February of [A] 1940, just one long block from
that New York Public Library, it's the one [D] that goes like this. _ _ _ _ _ _
This land [G] is your land, this [D] land is my land.
[A] From [A] California to the [D] New York [D] Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the [D] Gulf Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you.
Now _ [Em] _
_ _ [A] _ _ I'm on the road about 200 days a year.
I go from the Everglades [Em] in Florida right up to the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
[A] And I've never met a kindergarten _ teacher on any campus in the United [D] States who doesn't
share this song with his or her students.
And that's [Em] why all the kids in the United States sing along when you start this one.
But you know what?
When Woody wrote this song [A] 69 years ago, it really wasn't a children's [D] song because Woody
had traveled through the United States during the Great [Em] American Depression.
In 1929, the stock market [A] crashed and the banks closed.
And soon, one out of three people in the United States [Bm] didn't have a job.
Those were hard times and there were a lot of hungry people.
[Em] You know, my own grandfather was a carpenter in New York City.
He said that he used to carry a 60-pound toolbox five miles [Dm] each way to the job site in [D] Manhattan
just to save a nickel each way on the subway.
Now you know, [Em] those are hard times when you carry a 60-pound box [A] ten miles every day just
so you'd have one extra dime to buy food for your [D] children.
_ _ Well, Woody Guthrie saw those people out of work and went through those hard times.
[A] And he was thinking of them [A] and of Irving Berlin's song, God Bless America, [E] when he
sat down at that desk at Hanover House with that [D] pencil and that [Em] piece of notebook paper
and he wrote the first verse to the [A] song, You Know This Land Is Your Land.
It went like [D] this. _
_ In the [G] shadow of the steeple, I [D] saw my people.
[F#m] By the relief office, I saw [D] my people.
As they [G] stood there hungry, I stood there [F#m] _ [B] asking, [A] Did God bless America [D] for me? _ _ _
[Em] _ [A] When Woody first made up the song, he wanted the chorus to say, it would say, God blessed
America [D] for me.
But he found that This Land Is Your Land was more inclusive to say, [E] this land was [A] made
for you and me.
[D] It falls off your tongue a whole lot easier.
[Em] You know, _ Woody recorded this song in the 40s for Moash and Folkways [A] Records, but the
record wasn't very widely distributed.
My friend Frank Hamilton [D] told me that the very first time he heard this song played
[Em] was by a mandolin player on Staten Island.
[A] But you know, by 1965, when I was five years old, it seems like everybody in the [D] United
States knew the words to this song.
And when Woody made up [Em] this song, he made up one of the verses that gives you a little
insight into [A] his worldview.
Let me sing it for you now so you [A] know the way he thought about [D] things.
It's the verse that went like this.
_ _ _ As I [G] was a _ -walkin', I [D] saw a sign there.
And on [F#m] that sign it said, [D] no trespassing.
But on the [G] other side, it didn't say _ [B] nothin'.
Well, [A] that side was made for you and [D] me.
_ [G] This land is your land.
This land is my land.
[A] From _ California to the New [D] York Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the Gulf [F#m] Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you and [D] me. _ _
[Em] _ _ _ [A] _ _ [D] Now what most people don't remember is the great spiritual [E] that Woody took the tune [Em] from.
It's an old hymn they used to sing in the church down in [A] Oklahoma.
And it was one that was recorded by the Carter family.
It's the one that went like [D] this. _
_ Oh my [G] darlin' brother, when the world's on fire, [A] do you want God's bosom to be your [D] pillow?
Won't you tide [G] me over in the [D] rock of _ [B] ages?
[A] Oh rock of ages, cleft [D] for me.
_ This [F#m] land is your [E] land.
This [G] land is my land.
From California to the New York Islands, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf [D] Stream [Bm] waters,
_ [Em] this land was [A] made for you and me.
[D] This land [G] is your land.
This land is [D] my land.
From [A] California to the [D] New York Islands, from the Redwood [Em] Forest to the Gulf Stream [F#m] _ [Bm] waters, _
[Em] this land [A] was made for you [D] and me. _
[Bm] _ _ _ [Em] _ This land [A] was made for you [D] and me.
[F#m] _ _ [Bm] _ _
_ _ [Em] _ This land was [A] made _ for you [D] and me.
_ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ I want to tell you a little story about a man from Oklahoma.
[E] Born July [Em] 14th of 1912 in Okema, [A] Oklahoma, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, [D] wrote
over a thousand American folk songs in his short life.
And you know what?
He didn't [Em] use an original melody for any one of those songs.
Not Woody [A] Guthrie.
Woody Guthrie was the greatest parodist of the 20th century.
He took [D] songs he already knew, and he changed the words around, [Em] and he made up new words
to old tunes, and he did it over a thousand [E] times.
And most of [A] those tunes he borrowed from the 78 RPM recordings of his [D] favorite band,
the Carter family.
So here's a true story about Woody.
[E] Woody was in California, [Em] _
February of [F#m] 1940, and he decided he was going to hitchhike across
the United States and go to New York [D] City without a jacket, a suitcase, or a guitar.
So he stuck out his [Em] thumb, and he hitchhiked across this country, and as he traveled, [A] he
heard a brand new song on the radio that had just been written by a man, a [D] Russian immigrant
who wrote popular music in the United States named Irving Berlin.
[Em] This song was a brand new song in 1939.
Kate [A] Smith had recorded it, and it was on every radio station and jukebox, and Woody
heard it so many times on the trip across [D] the country.
You know the song I mean, the one that goes,
God bless _ [F#m]
America, _ _ [A] land that [D] I love.
[G] Stand beside her [D] and guide her through the night with [A] the light [D] from above.
Well, Woody got so sick and tired of hearing this song over [Em] and over and over again on
that trip across the country.
And then at one [A] point, he heard a disc jockey on the radio mention that that song might
become the [D] national anthem of the United States, and that was all Woody could take.
He was so [Em] upset, he made a vow to himself that when he got to New York City, he was
going to write another song about the United States.
It said all the things about [D] this country, God bless America, did he say.
So when he got to New York [Em] City, he stayed at the home of Will and Herta Gere.
Remember Will Gere, [A] the great Shakespearean actor?
Man who [D] played Grandpa Walton on the Waltons at the end of his career?
Well, you know, most people [Em] who had Woody Guthrie as a house guest would find that he
would sleep on the couch with his boots on [A] and wreck the couch and leave it dirty.
[D] And most families wouldn't fall for that more than once.
But Will Gere thought that [Em] Woody Guthrie could do no wrong.
Woody spent a couple of [A] weeks at their brownstone in New York sleeping on the couch.
And there he [D] borrowed from Will Gere's wife Herta _ a pre-World War II [Em] Brazilian rosewood Martin guitar.
And he carried [A] it down the steps of the brownstone out into [F#m] a rainstorm.
And Herta Gere said [D] to herself, I'll bet I'll never see that guitar again.
And she was certainly correct.
Woody walked through the snow [Em] to a little hotel at the corner of 43rd Street and 6th
Avenue [A] called Hanover House.
And there in that little fleabag [F#m] hotel with a [D] yellow pencil like the kids use in their classrooms.
[E] He proceeded to write [Em] that song about the United States.
[A] He wrote a six verse poem.
He made the first verse a chorus.
He appropriated the tune [D] from an old Christian hymn that he'd heard on a Carter family recording.
And he put that song in a drawer with a bunch of other things he'd written because, you
know, if you're [A] going to write a thousand American folk songs in 20 short years, you gotta hustle.
But you know, Woody was a sick man.
[Em] It didn't bother him much at that time in 1940.
But Woody had something that you call Huntington's disease [A] at that time in history.
They [D] didn't even have a name for it.
But it got worse and worse.
And [Em] by May 29th of 1956, the [A] day that the New York City policemen found Woody wandering
on the freeways, they took him to a hospital.
Woody Guthrie spent the last 13 years of his [Em] life laying in a hospital bed, fighting that
Huntington's [A] disease, a disease that takes [A] away the use of your arms and legs and your
fingers and toes.
[D] And they said, lay that in that hospital bed, fighting that disease [Em] with all his might,
that song that he'd written about the United States.
[A] It went around the world without ever being played on the radio or the [D] television, mind you.
It has become one of the best known English language folk songs in the whole wide world.
[Em] That means whatever language you speak, whatever country you live in, if you know one [A] verse
or one chorus of a song in the English language other than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Old
McDonald and Happy Birthday, you [D] probably know the one Woody made up at Hanover House.
At the [Em] corner of 43rd Street and 6th Avenue in February of [A] 1940, just one long block from
that New York Public Library, it's the one [D] that goes like this. _ _ _ _ _ _
This land [G] is your land, this [D] land is my land.
[A] From [A] California to the [D] New York [D] Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the [D] Gulf Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you.
Now _ [Em] _
_ _ [A] _ _ I'm on the road about 200 days a year.
I go from the Everglades [Em] in Florida right up to the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
[A] And I've never met a kindergarten _ teacher on any campus in the United [D] States who doesn't
share this song with his or her students.
And that's [Em] why all the kids in the United States sing along when you start this one.
But you know what?
When Woody wrote this song [A] 69 years ago, it really wasn't a children's [D] song because Woody
had traveled through the United States during the Great [Em] American Depression.
In 1929, the stock market [A] crashed and the banks closed.
And soon, one out of three people in the United States [Bm] didn't have a job.
Those were hard times and there were a lot of hungry people.
[Em] You know, my own grandfather was a carpenter in New York City.
He said that he used to carry a 60-pound toolbox five miles [Dm] each way to the job site in [D] Manhattan
just to save a nickel each way on the subway.
Now you know, [Em] those are hard times when you carry a 60-pound box [A] ten miles every day just
so you'd have one extra dime to buy food for your [D] children.
_ _ Well, Woody Guthrie saw those people out of work and went through those hard times.
[A] And he was thinking of them [A] and of Irving Berlin's song, God Bless America, [E] when he
sat down at that desk at Hanover House with that [D] pencil and that [Em] piece of notebook paper
and he wrote the first verse to the [A] song, You Know This Land Is Your Land.
It went like [D] this. _
_ In the [G] shadow of the steeple, I [D] saw my people.
[F#m] By the relief office, I saw [D] my people.
As they [G] stood there hungry, I stood there [F#m] _ [B] asking, [A] Did God bless America [D] for me? _ _ _
[Em] _ [A] When Woody first made up the song, he wanted the chorus to say, it would say, God blessed
America [D] for me.
But he found that This Land Is Your Land was more inclusive to say, [E] this land was [A] made
for you and me.
[D] It falls off your tongue a whole lot easier.
[Em] You know, _ Woody recorded this song in the 40s for Moash and Folkways [A] Records, but the
record wasn't very widely distributed.
My friend Frank Hamilton [D] told me that the very first time he heard this song played
[Em] was by a mandolin player on Staten Island.
[A] But you know, by 1965, when I was five years old, it seems like everybody in the [D] United
States knew the words to this song.
And when Woody made up [Em] this song, he made up one of the verses that gives you a little
insight into [A] his worldview.
Let me sing it for you now so you [A] know the way he thought about [D] things.
It's the verse that went like this.
_ _ _ As I [G] was a _ -walkin', I [D] saw a sign there.
And on [F#m] that sign it said, [D] no trespassing.
But on the [G] other side, it didn't say _ [B] nothin'.
Well, [A] that side was made for you and [D] me.
_ [G] This land is your land.
This land is my land.
[A] From _ California to the New [D] York Islands, from the [G] Redwood Forest to the Gulf [F#m] Stream [B] waters,
[A] this land was made for you and [D] me. _ _
[Em] _ _ _ [A] _ _ [D] Now what most people don't remember is the great spiritual [E] that Woody took the tune [Em] from.
It's an old hymn they used to sing in the church down in [A] Oklahoma.
And it was one that was recorded by the Carter family.
It's the one that went like [D] this. _
_ Oh my [G] darlin' brother, when the world's on fire, [A] do you want God's bosom to be your [D] pillow?
Won't you tide [G] me over in the [D] rock of _ [B] ages?
[A] Oh rock of ages, cleft [D] for me.
_ This [F#m] land is your [E] land.
This [G] land is my land.
From California to the New York Islands, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf [D] Stream [Bm] waters,
_ [Em] this land was [A] made for you and me.
[D] This land [G] is your land.
This land is [D] my land.
From [A] California to the [D] New York Islands, from the Redwood [Em] Forest to the Gulf Stream [F#m] _ [Bm] waters, _
[Em] this land [A] was made for you [D] and me. _
[Bm] _ _ _ [Em] _ This land [A] was made for you [D] and me.
[F#m] _ _ [Bm] _ _
_ _ [Em] _ This land was [A] made _ for you [D] and me.
_ [G] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _