Woody Guthrie's Song 'This Land Is Your Land'

It is often inferred by many people that have read both Walt Whitman's poem “I Hear America Singing”, and Langston Hughes poem “I, Too, Sing America”, that one is a response to the other. Walt Whitman was an extremely famous poet and still is presently. His poem was very patriotic and inspired a lot of people. Langston Hughes did not see the poem in a positive way. In what many think is a retaliation to the poem, Langston Hughes wrote “I, Too, Sing America”. Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too, Sing America” builds on and compares with Walt Whitman’s poem in many ways, it says we all Americans, they sound very much alike, we need to be together as one.

During the 1900s, passion of composing music arose and encouraged many young teens to create garage bands and elder to perceive music as career. Famous musicians like Robert Johnson, Bill Monroe, and Elvis Presley were seeking the same. Although many were composing songs, most of them adapted their own versions from many which created a list of similarities and differences between them. Most commonly similar were themes or forms yet some differentiated in delivery style or instrumentation. Many artists got more creative and used similar instruments but give a twist into the sound play. This can be seen in the script or heard in the audio of the songs “Walkin’ Blues” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” like many others.

        One of the most noticable similarities between the two pieces of poetry, "I Hear America Singing", and "I, Too, Sing America", is the theme of unity. Both poems express what America is, and that is the people in America. Whitman's poem however, doesn't include blacks in his poem, but all other kinds of people. Hughes', poem makes it so that he is included. For example, Whitman's poem celebrates, "The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

Langston Hughes wrote a poem that some believe is in response to a poem Walt Whitman made. Walt Whitman’s poem “I hear America Singing” is basically a description of the people who made up America at the time. The mothers, the carpenters, the masons, the shoemakers, the wood cutters, etc, were all the different types of people that made up what America, said of the poem. With Langston Hughes's poem “I, Too, Sing America”, the poem is making a sort of claim that Hughes’s and blacks alike also have a right to feel patriotic towards and be a part of America. Both poems are pretty similar to what they’re subject is (America), but they are quite different when it comes to what exactly the two poems are mainly focusing on.

The lyrics express Guthrie's belief that the working class should have the same rights as the rich. He very proudly carried the torch of singing songs about the American worker. Woody Guthrie’s music was not written down, but instead sung, performed, and taught completely by memory. The structure of this song is easy and memorable, using an "ACAB" format, which repeats the beginning of the melody (A section) for the third line. There was a certain Americana aspect to his folk music. He was a migrant farmer traveling as a country singer, using only his guitar and voice (occasionally using a harmonica) in his performances. He created songs from the sights he saw as he traveled all over the USA as a country singer, and spoke out against the lack of fairness and justice of capitalism and poor treatment of blue collar workers. He preached that his folk music was not just something that was made just to “sell” and “make money”, it was intensively focused on political and worldly events.

In this essay I will be talking about the differences between Walt Whitman's poem “ I Hear America Singing” and Langston Hughes poem “ I, Too, Sing America”. I will also be giving my opinion on whether or not Langston Hughes is responding to Walt Whitman's poem. Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and a columnist from Joplin, Missouri. Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and a journalist from West Hills, New York. This is all just background information about the two poets jobs and of where they came from. In the poem “ I Hear America Singing” Walt Whitman talks about lots of different types of jobs and of their distinctive carols. He talks of mechanics and how their singing is blithe and

As for the second the poem The Weary Blues the theme in it is slightly different from I Too, but it has the same meaning. The theme is about how African American expressed their opinions and communicated throughout music because they were being discriminated. In the third line of the poem speaker gives us a

Woody Guthrie was the most famous singers in the USA in the 1900s. His most famous song is This Land is Your Land. He sang this song all across America to encourage hundreds of poor people. Also, his quotes say that he hates songs that make people feel bad. The quotes and song are similar and different.

Overall, Woodie Guthrie’s songs helped many people stop, realize they have to do something about what was going on, and figure out a solution to their

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like without the freedoms you enjoy everyday? The song “God Bless the USA” is about a man who is thankful for all the men and women who have fought to provide and defend his freedoms. The poem “Will V-Day Be Me Day Too?” is about a man who fights for the country’s freedoms but does not get any in return. Although the song “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood and the poem “Will V-Day Be Me Day Too?” by Langston Hughes are alike in defending Americas freedoms, they are also different because in the song he loses everything and has to start over but in the poem he never had anything to start off with.

Woody Guthrie once said, “ I’m out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. Woody Guthrie was a folk singer who sang songs all over the usa “ What Woody Guthrie trying to say is that he will never give up singing songs about building people up . That is what the song “ This Land is Your Land “ that is written 1940 wrote is about .The song and the quote are similar and different in many ways.

The difference is the same person who ask the question answered the question with his own experiences. The song illustrates a picture of how the 1960’s were when the Civil Rights advocates ordeal were going on. Again the speaker/song writer metaphorically used words such as ‘a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it’ (Dylan 107) and ‘guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children’ (Dylan 108). As we know babies signify the innocence of the world, so the wolves would be the outside world of the guardians protection.

The structuralism found in the poem, “ This land is your land” by Woody Guthrie is worth noting as a important critical approach; although the Historical Criticism used for this poem was vital to understand what Guthrie was trying to convey with his simple structure. The structuralism used by Guthrie made this poem simple and easy to understand and repeat but it was also pulled from his childhood listening to the Mississippi Delta blues. As the historical time periods changed so did the meaning of Guthrie’s song to listeners change. The Structure in “This land is your Land,” is simplistic in nature; an example of this is the way the song is played on the guitar. On the guitar the first four notes Woody Guthrie was born into a musically inclined family and though out his childhood he experienced lost.

The song I picked from the Miami University library was "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie in 1945. It was a major force in the urban folk song revival as Guthrie presents an intimate portrait of America through his music. The original title of the song was "God Blessed America" and was written in response to the song "God Bless America" after he grew tired of hearing it on the radio. As well as the original song contained two additional verses taken from the end talking about hungry people and private property. This is in reference to the Great Depression which had taken place during the time Guthrie had been writing this song. The artist himself references dust clouds in his song that caused him to migrate his family to California

Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again” is a poem that could be endlessly applied to where America stands today. This poem illustrates the morals, ideas, and visions set forth by those who found this country and how America has begun straying from those principles. The poem expresses that America is made up of all walks of people and that no man should be crushed by those above him, but rather be given the same opportunity as those above him. Hughes desire to make America great again can be shared in some way or another by most Americans making this poem everlasting. “Let America Be America Again” has the personalization, the language, the connection shared by every American, and the rhyme to allow readers of every race, gender, or religious belief to be brought together as not only people but as Americans.