That’s it for us this week, dear reader. We leave you with a song that Bruce Springsteen describes as, “…the greatest song ever written about America.” In the week that saw the 46th President of the United States sworn in, it seemed only right to feature ‘This Land is Your Land’, the classic Woody Guthrie song. The inauguration is history-making as Biden is the oldest person ever to take on the Presidency and Kamala Harris is the first woman, and the first black person, to be Vice-President. But such things are shadowed by the the violent protests and unfounded claims of electoral fraud that have assaulted the democratic process since the election. From a friend across the world, America needs to once again listen to the words of this wonderfully emotive anthem.
There’s a wonderful version of this song from Obama’s inauguration, when Springsteen performed with Pete Seeger. However, this cover version of the anthem was selected because the impassioned introduction by Springsteen still carries such meaning, all these years after he performed the song on the ‘Born in the USA’ tour back in 1985. He says of the song: “What’s so great about it, is it gets right to the heart of the promise of what our country was supposed to be about…with countries, just like with people, it’s easy to let the best of yourself slip away.” Something to reflect on this weekend, dear reader.
