Something I’m noticing as I scroll through the Twitter Dot Com is that like.... a lot of people don’t know what This Land Is Your Land is about and aren’t aware there’s more verses than are typically sung now.

Written by renowned socialist Woody Guthrie, the song is a criticism of private property and the exclusion of most people from utilizing the land. If anything, it’s a criticism of settler-colonialism, in addition to an overt criticism of capitalism.

The aforementioned typically-dropped verses.

It’s a song highlighting the contradictions of American mythology and American reality. And there’s valid and important criticism to be made of the revisionist use of the song, but the song itself was written with a radical message.

With that said, it would have been way cooler to sing this Woody Guthrie gem instead: