Today is the birthday of Woodrow Wilson — aka “Woody Guthrie” — born in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1912. He never finished high school, but he spent his spare time reading books at the local public library. He took occasional jobs as a sign painter and started playing music on a guitar he found in the street.
During the Dust Bowl in the mid-1930s, Guthrie followed workers who were moving to California. They taught him traditional folk and blues songs, and Guthrie went on to write thousands of his own, including “This Train Is Bound for Glory.” In 1940, he wrote the folk classic “This Land Is Your Land” because he was growing sick of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”
Woody Guthrie once said: “I hate a song that makes you think that you’re not any good. […] Songs that run you down or songs that poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling. I am out to fight those kinds of songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood.”
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This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train is bound for glory,
Don’t carry nothing but the righteous and the holy.
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train don’t carry no gamblers, this train;
This train don’t carry no gamblers, this train;
This train don’t carry no gamblers,
Liars, thieves, nor big shot ramblers,
This train is bound for glory, this train.
This train don’t carry no liars, this train;
This train don’t carry no liars, this train;
This train don’t carry no liars,
She’s streamlined and a midnight flyer,
This train don’t carry no liars, this train.
This train don’t carry no smokers, this train;
This train don’t carry no smokers, this train
This train don’t carry no smokers,
Two bit liars, small time jokers,
This train don’t carry no smokers, this train.
This train don’t carry no con men, this train;
This train don’t carry no con men, this train;
This train don’t carry no con men,
No wheeler dealers, here and gone men,
This train don’t carry no con men, this train.
This train don’t carry no rustlers, this train;
This train don’t carry no rustlers, this train;
This train don’t carry no rustlers,
Sidestreet walkers, two bit hustlers,
This train is bound for glory, this train.
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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
I roamed and rambled, and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was singing
This land was made for you and me!
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 those golden valleys
This land was made for you and me!
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 the sun was shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling
As the fog was lifting, a voice was saying
“This land was made for you and me!”
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
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