I was delighted to see Pete Seeger leading the crowd in song at the end of the Obama concert yesterday. Now there is a true American hero: almost 90 his voice is fading, but the same cannot be said of his enthusiasm - he looked so happy!
Characteristically he insisted that they sing the full 'unsanitised' version of 'This Land is Your Land', and rightly so. Woody Guthrie's song is patriotic in a unromantic and unfashionable way - expressing the notion that ultimately the story of a nation is the story of her people, not of her leaders. It is not a song celebrating the hope and freedom of America but decrying its absence for those exploited and left in extreme poverty by the actions of an unchecked Capitalist hierarchy. It is in essence a protest song. I'm sure the potency of the lyrics in these times of multi-billion dollar bailouts, fraudsters and deindustrialisation were not lost on Seeger, or for that matter Barack Obama.
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