Ebook: This land that I love : Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the story of two American anthems
- Tags: Berlin Irving / 1888-1989 / God bless America., Guthrie Woody / 1912-1967 / This land is your land., Berlin Irving. -- God Bless America., Guthrie Woody -- 1912-1967. -- This land is your land., Patriotic music / United States / History and criticism., Popular music / United States / History and criticism., Patriotisches Lied., USA.
- Year: 2013
- Publisher: PublicAffairs
- City: New York, USA
- Edition: 1. ed
- Language: English
- epub
February, 1940: After a decade of worldwide depression, World War II had begun in Europe and Asia. With Germany on the march, and Japan at war with China, the global crisis was in a crescendo. America's top songwriter, Irving Berlin, had captured the nation's mood a little more than a year before with his patriotic hymn, “God Bless America."
Woody Guthrie was having none of it. Near-starving and penniless, he was traveling from Texas to New York to make a new start. As he eked his way across the country by bus and by thumb, he couldn't avoid Berlin's song. Some people say that it was when he was freezing by the side of the road in a Pennsylvania snowstorm that he conceived of a rebuttal. It would encompass the dark realities of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and it would begin with the lines: “This land is your land, this land is my land...."
In This Land That I Love, John Shaw writes the dual biography of these beloved American songs....