第二のアメリカ国歌

This Land is Your Landhはオバマ大統領就任式でも歌われたとか。 BBCの記事がこの歌の背景を説明してくれています。

This Land is Your Land: America’s other national anthem

Already popularised by school textbooks, This Land Is Your Land regained its political bite in the 1960s through the folk revival and the civil rights movement. While recordings by Bing Crosby and Peter, Paul and Mary were abbreviated, Pete Seeger and Guthrie’s son Arlo always performed the radical verses, lest they be forgotten. It helped that Guthrie, no nightingale himself, had written a song that anyone could sing. The robustly cheerful melody (taken from the gospel hymn When the World’s on Fire) was perfect for a protest march, picket line, festival or classroom.

This Land Is Your Land has since become immeasurably famous, woven deep into the fabric of US culture. Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger sang it, radical verses and all, at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009. Lady Gaga pointedly combined it with God Bless America in her 2017 Super Bowl performance, while Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine sang it at the Occupy Wall Street protest camp in 2011. It was sung during the presidential campaigns of Democrats George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984, as well as that of Mondale’s opponent Ronald Reagan. Bernie Sanders, who recorded his own bewildering reggae version in 1987, made it a mainstay of both his runs for president. It has been parodied in The Simpsons and Tim Robbins’ 1992 satire Bob Roberts, and used to advertise cars and airlines.

いろいろな人が抗議ソングとして歌っているようですが、あのバーニーサンダースも1987年に歌っているとか。。。

BBCのこの記事によると、この歌にはアメリカ先住民は含まれていないのではという抗議があるそうです。

A living song

Clearly, it’s a song that anybody can adopt but are there limits to the inclusiveness of “you and me”? Does it exclude anyone? Consider the line of the Declaration of Independence, “All men are created equal,” and what is meant by “all men”. Not women. Not black people, some of whom were held as slaves by the men who wrote that document. Certainly not Native Americans. Does This Land Is Your Land’s democratic message also sin by omission?

Last year, the Native American folk singer Mali Obomsawin argued in Folklife magazine that the left should retire a song that evokes “Manifest Destiny and expansionism” and therefore “anti-Nativism”. “In the context of America, a nation-state built by settler colonialism, Woody Guthrie’s protest anthem exemplifies the particular blind spot that Americans have in regard to Natives: American patriotism erases us, even if it comes in the form of a leftist protest song. Why? Because this land ‘was’ our land.”

今回の就任式に対してもこの文脈から批判しているものもありました。

Jennifer Lopez's 'This Land Is Your Land' Performance Criticized For Colonial Themes

This land is stolen land, many pointed out.

By Al Donato

01/20/2021 02:57pm EST | Updated January 22, 2021

Pop star Jennifer Lopez’s performance during U.S. president Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday delighted those who noticed her playful ad-lib and appreciated her Latina presence at the historic event, but the song she sang left much to be desired for many Indigenous viewers.

このような見直しの中で、God Bless Americaを歌ったことで有名なKate Smithが2年前に問題視されていたことを知りました。彼女は1930年代に人種差別に関わる歌を歌っていたことで、彼女の銅像の撤去やニューヨークヤンキースの球場で７回に流れる彼女の曲が止められることになったそうです。そのあたりの状況をガスリーの歌を交えて書いた記事。

Moral clarity? Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' vs. Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land'

By CORY FRANKLIN APR 24, 2019 AT 3:30 PM

The New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers both recently announced they would stop using their traditional recorded versions of Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” during games.

In a particularly totalitarian touch, the Flyers removed a statue of Smith from the Philadelphia sports complex and destroyed the statue’s base thereby assuring the specter of Kate Smith will no more haunt the City of Brotherly Love. The ostensible reason for all of this is to assure moral clarity — that being the coin of the realm these days when we disappear people and destroy statues while confronting our past.

この記事はKate Smithに同情的で、第二次世界大戦中にこの歌の収益を寄付していたことなどあげ、　ガスリーは共産党シンパで、彼の娘が楽曲の権利を手放そうとしないことを当てつけていました。

歌の受け止め方が時代とともに変わってくる。そして、BLM運動が盛り上がっている中、その受け止め方が変わるただ中に我々がいるようで、もしかしたら次の就任式ではこれらの歌は歌われなくなるかもしれません。