This Land is Your Land

This video is of the crowd at the "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration" concert which is available online at HBO only to watchers in the U.S. and territories (darn!). HBO took down the original YouTube video which was a copy of part of their coverage of the concert. The video shown here, by KevanAndJessica, is the best I saw on YouTube of the concert from the audience viewpoint. A search on YouTube for will likely find many more versions of the song - the best search is on 'This Land' since it will give you a list of videos as well as other search terms to try. I found a video of the song by Woody Guthrie, who wrote it, as well as one sung by Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, Woody's son.

There are many other versions of the song shown on YouTube but none so moving as the rendition by Springsteen and Seeger at the Inaugural Celebration.

I watched the concert live on HBO Canada, which is showing it several times this week. The highlight, for me, was the appearance of Pete Seeger, doing his thing and looking pretty happy about it. If you watch to the end of this video (or any of the videos that are still there) and click on the 'This is Your Land' link, you will see links to other videos of the concert, most taken from the crowd's perspective. You will also see that the comments include much discussion about the correct words to the song.

So I did a Google search and found the Wikipedia entry which has the lyrics and a discussion of alternate lyrics. It also includes a link to the 1956 copyright version of the lyrics on the Woody Guthrie Foundation's website. As you will see, the lyrics have changed over the years, depending on who is singing it.
[edited December 30, 2009]