This Land is Your Land

If I were the producer, yesterday's concert would have closed with This Land is Your Land. Yet I never expected that; I know how out of touch I am with popular taste. How perfect for me, then, that Obama's remarks should be followed with that anthem to the American people; even better that it brought us Pete Seeger--even if he was only speaking the verses--and Bruce Springstein. And how suprising--perhaps shocking--to hear them sing the verse that goes:

As I was walkin'  -  I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side  .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

I confess that there were tears in my eyes, and some of them
escaped down my cheeks.  This Land is not merely Woody
Guthrie's great anthem,  a remembrance of the folk music revival
of the 1960's, it was also the theme song of Fred Harri's New
Populist campaign in 1976--a time when we true believers
thought we would change the world.  The song represents the
best of my past, and a hope for the future.