she opened with "This land is your land" and performed "Born like this."
Springsteen's brought it up but few remember what a protest song "This land is your land" really is.
"As Robert Santelli wrote in “This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song,”
'The version of “This Land is Your Land” that most Americans claim familiarity with does not contain the lyrics that doubt America’s integrity or questions the country’s commitment to essential freedoms.
Those lyrics in the fourth and sixth verses of the song often have been washed away or simply ignored, which is why “This Land Is Your Land” has been able to stand side by side with the other great patriotic paeans to America.'
"There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
The sign was painted, said ‘Private Property.’
But on the backside, it didn’t say nothing.
This land was made for you and me."
"One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,
by the relief office I saw my people.
As they stood hungry,
I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me."
Let's hope so.
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