Synopses & Reviews
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. Americas top songwriter, Irving Berlin, had captured the nations 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 couldnt avoid Berlins 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. Examining the lives of their authors, he finds that Guthrie and Berlin had more in common than either could have guessed. Though Guthries image was defined by train-hopping, Irving Berlin had also risen from homelessness, having worked his way up from the streets of New York.
At the same time, This Land That I Love sheds new light on our patriotic musical heritage, from Yankee Doodle” and The Star-Spangled Banner” to Martin Luther Kings recitation from My Country Tis of Thee” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. Delving into the deeper history of war songs, minstrelsy, ragtime, country music, folk music, and African American spirituals, Shaw unearths a rich vein of half-forgotten musical traditions. With the aid of archival research, he uncovers new details about the songs, including a never-before-printed verse for This Land Is Your Land.” The result is a fascinating narrative that refracts and re-envisions Americas tumultuous history through the prism of two unforgettable anthems.
Review
A fine work written in an easygoing and appealing style. Shaw takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of the rich and multifaceted legacy of American song. It is sure to appeal to all who love good music and lively well crafted history.” —Real Change News
Review
One of The Atlantics Notable Releases of Fall 2013 Entertaining and informative.” New York Times Book Review
Engaging
Shaw wields an impressive grasp of American musical history.” Boston Globe
[Shaw] is particularly good at nailing down the melodic ancestors for these Great American Anthems and for tracing the various revisions Berlin and Guthrie made to their songs along the way
This Land That I Love traverses, in a relatively small number of pages, the whole canvas of America.” Slate
[Shaw] effectively connects [This Land Is Your Land] to earlier anthems
Ultimately, This Land That I Love is about more than two songs, or the two men who created them.” Daily Beast
Its a lyrical mix of folklore, Americana, history, music theory, and pop culture that tracks how two supposedly opposing songs end up in the same place, on a short list of the best ditties ever written about the American experience.” Biographile
Within a frame of the deepest familiarity, John Shaw rescues forgotten stories and excavates stories never told before. The book is generous, open, questing, and blazingly incisive: with a sentence, maybe two or three, he gets to the heart of such unsolved mysteries as blackface, the concept of folk, or the loop of celebrity and history in modern life.” Greil Marcus, music critic and author of Mystery Train and Lipstick Traces
A fine work written in an easygoing and appealing style. Shaw takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of the rich and multifaceted legacy of American song. It is sure to appeal to all who love good music and lively well crafted history.” Real Change News
"Blurring the lines between American folk” and popular” music, (Duke Ellington
once said, There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind) comes This Land That I Love: Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the Story of Two American Anthems (Public Affairs) by John Shaw. Using the two iconic American songs God Bless America” and This Land Is Your Land” composed just a year apart (1939 and 1940 respectively), Shaw tells the history of the songs and their composers. The book has 274 pages but the basic text is just over 200, and the print is large, so its an easy-read." —Steve Ramm, "Anything Phonographic"
Synopsis
A narrative history of the writing of This Land is Your Land” and God Bless America” that uncovers the conflicts and common ground between two classic, patriotic songsMillions of Americans have sung God Bless America” and This Land Is Your Land.” Few know that the latter originated when a homeless Dust Bowl refugee named Woody Guthrie became so provoked by Irving Berlins sentimental celebration of patriotism that he began to write an American anthem of his ownone that encompassed the dark realities of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. But Guthrie was unaware that the song he despised concealed complexities all its own. Irving Berlin had also risen from homelessness before becoming Americas most successful songwriter, and penned his song partly in response to Hitlers rise overseas.
In This Land That I Love, music-writer and composer John Shaw writes the dual biography of these beloved American songs. He offers a unique view of Americas rich patriotic traditions and episodes from our tumultuous history through the prism of these two unforgettable anthems.
About the Author
John Shaw has written on music and theater for the L.A. Review of Books and Chicago Reader. He has written more than 250 songs, including music and lyrics for three full-length and numerous short plays that have been produced in Seattle, Chicago, and elsewhere. He lives in Seattle.