This Land Is Your Land This Land Is Your Land "This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, based on an existing melody, a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire", in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically wrote "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land." In 2002, "This Land Is Your Land" was one
Irving Berlin included a number of hits, including "Mandy" and "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning", which he performed himself. The shows earned $150,000 for a camp service center. One song he wrote for the show but decided not to use, he would introduce twenty years later: "God Bless America." Berlin returned to Tin Pan Alley after the war and in 1921 created a partnership with Sam Harris to build the Music Box Theater. He maintained an interest in the theater throughout his life, and even in his last years was known to call the Shubert Organization, his