For example, the other day, I was reading a news story about land, and the first thing that came to my mind was the Pete Seeger song I had heard a long time ago: ‘This Land Is Your Land.’ Or was it Woody Guthrie? Anyway, I downloaded the song, and for the last two days, I’m listing to it. The song is about American patriotism, the places it mentions are all American, places I have never seen and I don’t think I will ever. Yet, the song moves me in a peculiar way. It stirs emotions in me. Is it because the way Pete Seeger sings it? He has a fabulous voice. And the tune is so hummable!
While at it, I also got the the Pete Seeger version of ‘We Shall Overcome.’ Now, this is what I mean by American influence. I am listening to the English language song, not the Hindi one, ‘Hun Honge Kamyab...’
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Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Leadbelly's "Goodnight, Irene." Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes. As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)," (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!," which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularising the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. More on Pete Seeger here.
Pete Seeger performs This Land is Your Land.
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"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the US civil rights movement. The lyrics of the song are derived from the refrain of a gospel song by Charles Albert Tindley. The song was published in 1947 as "We Will Overcome" in the People's Songs Bulletin (a publication of People's Songs, an organization of which Pete Seeger was the director and guiding spirit). It appeared in the bulletin as a contribution of and with an introduction by Zilphia Horton, then music director of the Highlander Folk School of Monteagle, Tennessee, a school that trained union organizers. It was her favorite song and she taught it to Pete Seeger, who included it in his repertoire, as did many other activist singers, such as Frank Hamilton and Joe Glazer, who recorded it in 1950. The song became associated with the Civil Rights movement from 1959, when Guy Carawan stepped in as song leader at Highlander, and the school was the focus of student non-violent activism. It quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Seeger and other famous folksingers in the early 1960s, such as Joan Baez, sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known. Since its rise to prominence, the song, and songs based on it, have been used in a variety of protests worldwide.
More on We Shall Overcome here.
Pete Seeger performs We Shall Overcome
The Lyrics to This Land Is Your Land
(Woody Guthrie)
[Chorus:]
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.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway,
I saw below me that golden valley,
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled, and I followed my footsteps
To the sparking sands of her diamond deserts,
All around me a voice was sounding,
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, then I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling,
A voice was chanting as the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.
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 wondering if,
This land was made for you and me.
Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,
Was a great big sign that 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 I go walking my freedom highway,
Nobody living can make me turn back,
This land was made for you and me.
[Additional verses by Pete Seeger:]
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.
Woodland and grassland and river shoreline,
To everything living, even little microbes,
Fin, fur, and feather, we're all here together,
This land was made for you and me.
[And a Native American verse:]
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
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The Lyrics of ‘We Shall Overcome’
Lyrics derived from Charles Tindley's gospel song "I'll Overcome Some Day" (1900), and opening and closing melody from the 19th-century spiritual "No More Auction Block for Me" (a song that dates to before the Civil War). According to Professor Donnell King of Pellissippi State Technical Community College (in Knoxville, Tenn.), "We Shall Overcome" was adapted from these gospel songs by "Guy Carawan, Candy Carawan, and a couple of other people associated with the Highlander Research and Education Center, currently located near Knoxville, Tennessee. I have in my possession copies of the lyrics that include a brief history of the song, and a notation that royalties from the song go to support the Highlander Center."
1.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS:
Oh, deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day
2.
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand
We'll walk hand in hand some day
CHORUS
3.
We shall all be free
We shall all be free
We shall all be free some day
CHORUS
4.
We are not afraid
We are not afraid
We are not afraid some day
CHORUS
5.
We are not alone
We are not alone
We are not alone some day
CHORUS
6.
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around
The whole wide world around some day
CHORUS
7.
We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day
CHORUS
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SOURCES:
Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, Second Edition (Norton, 1971): 546-47, 159-60.
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