This Land

words by Jim Page
music by Woody Gutherie


Come gather 'round me
hear my sad story
I know you think you've heard someone sing it before me
but it's an old song
I had to change it
times ain't what they used to be

As I was walking
that super-highway
below the gray haze
and city skyway
I was arrested for hitchhiking of the freeway
they said it don't belong to me

It ain't my land
and it ain't your land
could be a rich land
but it's a poor land
'cause of the few that hold it in their tight gripped hands
so that
         it don't belong to you or me

When I was younger
and in my schooling
I learned and followed
by all the rulings
I never dreamed that they were only fooling
how could my teachers lie to me?

but as time passed
and I grew older
and the world around me
got a little colder
a voice came calling at my shoulder
said, "it don't belong to you or me"

And it ain't my land
and it ain't your land
could be a rich land
but it's a poor land
'cause of the few that hold it in their tight gripped hands
so that
         it don't belong to you or me

From the boardrooms
of corporations
to the side roads of desperate situations
it is a sad and
dis-united nation
all the way from sea to shining sea

from the urban war zones
of the busted street lights
to the toxic wastelands
of Nevada test sites
from the open strip mines
to the clearcut forests
oh it's a sad sight to see

I see the downsize
I see the lay-offs
the corporate welfare and the politicians' pay-offs
I see the bread lines that never make the headlines
'cause they're not so entertaining on tee vee

When they can reduce you
to just a number
when they can knock you down and plough you under
and when the only thing that maters is the dollar
then you know it don't belong to you or me

It ain't my land
and it ain't your land
could be a rich land
but it's a poor land
'cause of the few that hold it in their tight gripped hand
so that
         it don't belong to you or me

There was a time when
this song was greater
but that was then
and this is later
and there's a hole in my heart just like a crater
and they say it's gonna be the death of me

Let's take this song back
let's take this country
take back our future
it's our duty
let's stand up tall so everyone can see
then this land will belong to you and me

...and it will be your land
and it will be my land
from California
to the New York island
from the redwood forest
to the Gulf Stream waters
this land will belong to you and me

©1999 Jim Page

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