Research Catalog

This land that I love : Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the story of two American anthems / John Shaw.

Title: This land that I love : Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the story of two American anthems / John Shaw.
Author: Shaw, John (John Allen), 1963-
Publication: New York : PublicAffairs, [2013]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	ML3551.5 .S53 2013	Off-site

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Details

Description

viii, 274 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

Near the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II, a homeless Dust Bowl refugee named Woody Guthrie originally drafted "This Land Is Your Land" as an anthem that encompassed the tough realities of those dark times--and as a rebuttal to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." But the song that Guthrie despised had its own complexities. Irving Berlin had risen from homelessness before becoming America's most successful songwriter, and penned his song partly in response to Hitler's rise overseas. In This Land That I Love, music-writer and composer John Shaw writes the dual biography of these beloved American songs, at the same time shedding new light on our patriotic musical heritage, from "Yankee Doodle" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" to Martin Luther King's quotation of "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 patriotic and musical traditions. With the aid of new archival research, he uncovers new details about the songs' composition, including a never-before-printed verse for "This Land Is Your Land." The result is a fascinating narrative that refracts and re-envisions America's tumultuous history through the prism of two unforgettable anthems.

Subject

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

Includes discography (pages 219-226), bibliographical references (pages 227-236) , and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

God blessed America -- Jews without money -- From sea to shining sea -- Come on and hear! -- Oklahoma hills -- Rockets' red glare -- An atmosphere that simply reeks with class -- If you ain't got the do re mi -- Storm clouds gather -- The faith that the dark past has taught us -- My pastures of plenty must always be free -- Freedom's road -- These songs were made for you and me -- Appendix: The textual history of "This Land Is Your Land."

ISBN

9781610392235
161039223X
1610392248
9781610392242
9781610392242 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2013022329
40022949655

OCLC

849801212
SCSB-9923392

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library