This Land (rewritten) -Jim Page

This Land

come gather round me, hear my sad story
I know you think you've heard some one sing it before me
but it's an old song, I had to change it
times ain't what they used to be
as I went walking that super highway
below the gray haze and sooted skyway
I was arrested for hitch hiking on the freeway
they said it don't belong to me
it ain't my land and it ain't your land
could be a rich land but it's a poor land
'cause of the few that hold it in their tight-gripped hand
so that it don't belong to you or me

when I was younger and in my schooling
I learned and followed by all the rulings
I never dreamed that they were only fooling
how could my teachers lie to me ?
but as time passed and I grew older
and the world around me got a little colder
I heard a voice came calling at my shoulder
said it don't belong to you or me
it ain't my land and it ain't your land
could be a rich land but it's a poor land
'cause of the few that hold it in their tight-gripped hand
so that it don't belong to you or me

from the board rooms of corporations
to the back roads of desperate situations
it's a confused and dis-united nation
all the way from sea to shining sea
from the urban war zones of the busted street lights
to the toxic waste lands of Nevada Test Sites
from the open strip mines to the clear cut forests
oh it's a sad sight to see
I see the downsize, I see the layoffs
the corporate welfare, politician's payoffs
I see the breadlines that never make the headlines
'cause they're no so entertaining on TV
when they can reduce you to just a number
when they can knock you down and they can plow you under
and when the only thing that matters is the dollar
then you know it don't belong to you or me

it ain't my land and it ain't your land
could be a rich land but it's a poor land
'cause of the few that hold it in their tight-gripped hand
so that it don't belong to you or me

there was a time when this song was greater
but that was then, and this is later
and there's a hole in my heart that's like a crater
and they say it's gonna be the death of me
let's take this song back, let's take this country
take back our future, it's our duty
let's stand up tall so that everyone can see
then this land will belong to you and me
and it will be your land and it will be my land
from California to the New York Island
from the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters
this land will belong to you and me