This Land Is Your Land

[filkertom]

My fellow Americans: No matter your political inclination, this will, I hope, make you feel fantastic.

When I grow up, I wanna be Peter Seeger.

ETA: This thread at dKos has videos of a lot more of the afternoon concert, as well as Obama's speech. There's also the text of the prayer delivered by The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, which HBO apparently didn't deign to broadcast, which is a damn shame.

ETA2: YouTube has taken down all the video they can find of this, because HBO is claiming copyright violation. Of the inaugural concert? I suspect there will be a little noise on this.

ETA3: Can't stop the signal.

ETA4: A new embed, above. Thanks to braider.

Comments

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this; I missed the concert today.

And... was that George Lucas that they panned on about halfway through? Out in the audience, singing with a rather attractive woman? It looked an awful lot like him.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I do believe it was. :)

[greenmansgrove.livejournal.com]

It absolutely was. And the attractive woman next to his was Mellody Hobson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellody_Hobson). I expect to see a video of them singing "It's a Small World" next... I went to high school with Mellody.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

What a grand old man he is. Gods bless him.

[ladyoceanstar.livejournal.com]

Totally crying here. That is made of win. Thank you so much for sharing it. :-)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that definitely made me happy. :)

passing by via friendsfriends

[hhw]

Thanks so much for posting this. Pete Seeger is one of my heroes, and this song is my national anthem.

[fair-witness.livejournal.com]

Oh, man....

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Who was the third guy on stage with Seeger and Springsteen?

And yes, that was George Lucas

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Seeger's grandson, Tao.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Hey Tom, I though you wanted to be Peter Lorre when you grew up!

Yeah, great concert. Wow. (Though I'm pretty sure it was old Woodie Guthrie who wrote that song, Pete's been going around singing it for a lot of years.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Absolutely Woody Guthrie wrote it. A commenter at YouTube said, and I agree, the only way that performance could've been made better was if Arlo had been there.

And I knew someone was gonna mention Lorre.... :-7

[zellion.livejournal.com]

Well, this is you, so someone pretty much had to mention Lorre. I sang that song for an 85 year old woman who lived in the nursing home I used to work at and she laughed so hard.

[jss]

Yeah, but if you'd've said "Peter Seeger" it'd've scanned too. :-P

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thought about it. In fact, I just changed it. :)

[jss]

:-)

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Now, what if he wanted to be an old woman?

[allisona.livejournal.com]

That was totally wonderful :).

[danceswithlife]

I had been looking for that video, but hadn't gotten to YouTube yet. Thanks for saving me some work. It was wonderful.

[marcgunn.livejournal.com]

nice!

[birder2.livejournal.com]

It is so frustrating to have you post things that I see only as a black rectangle! Fortunately NPR broadcast the song & other stuff, so I heard it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'm so very sorry. Serious question: Since YouTube is Flash-based, are you running an older copy of the Adobe Flash player? Or perhaps something, such as the NoScript plug-in for Firefox, that gets in the way of JavaScript? Might even be a browser setting. And, can you view things on the YouTube page? If you can't see it on my page, maybe you can click on that rectangle and follow the embedded link.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

When Arlo sings "This Land Is Your Land" in concert, he includes two of the three "banned verses," the "No Trespassing" one and the "Nobody Living" one.

Yeah I wish Arlo'd been there. Wonder why he wasn't. Looking at arlo.net I think it's because he's touring the British Isles. Several gigs in Ireland are listed as upcoming and he mentions doing one in Glasgow.

And yes, if anyone deserves a Nobel Peace Prize it's Pete. He's done more for the cause of peace and justice in the world than just about anyone, and he's done it with songs and courage.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[batyatoon]

The "Nobody living" verse is the only one I'd never heard before.

Brought tears to my eyes.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

What made me smile more than anything else was looking at the crowd singing together happily. With all the pain and the bad things in the world all those people came together to sing and do so with joy.

If that doesn't move you, I can't think of anything that would.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

That's what's gonna save us, m'friend. The ol' roll-up-your-sleeves-and-do-it-together thing. Which, when motivated properly, we're pretty darn good at.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Tom. I needed this.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

From your neighbour to the north, this brought tears to my eyes. :) I'd never heard but the first verse, so hearing all of those was a treat.

Thank you.

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

I saw this bit yesterday, and was practically in tears as I watched. I grew up listening to Pete Seeger, and have _vague_ memories of seeing him in concert as a kid, but more than that, I remember an interview I heard with him when everything was at its worst in which he said "How DARE you give up hope? You don't know what's going to happen next!" And then went on to talk about all the good things he'd seen in his lifetime. I've held tight to that ever since.

And there he was, bless his very soul. Such an exclamation point for such a life.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I have recordings of Pete Seeger and of Bruce Springsteen, each performing this in concert. (They each make the cut and live on my MP3 player, which is a little baby 20GB Zen.) I've been meaning to mash them -- and now, I don't have to.

That still leaves "We Shall Overcome" to mash up, though. After I clear the tears from my eyes.

[rivkaesque.livejournal.com]

Tears in my eyes. Thank you so much - I'm so swamped I never would have even found out about this.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Tom! I had tears in my eyes through it all.
No matter how deep my financial morass may be, and no matter how scary things are looking for the country right now, there is hope.

[sourceoftrouble.livejournal.com]

I guess I should have gotten online yesterday. Now HBO has removed it - because of a copyright issue. Drat.

[enjis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't able to be on yesterday...and now it's gone. I hope it gets posted somewhere else.....

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Fooey. HBO Copyright... drat... But thanks for posting.

[bar1scorpio.livejournal.com]

My fellow Americans: No matter your political inclination, this will, I hope, make you feel fantastic.

Wait, it's going to be inspirational, and everyone can all get along and enjoy it and come together in peace and harmony? And we can't watch it?

That says so much.

[shadowcat48li.livejournal.com]

a little noise, I think HBO just shot themselves in both feet on this, wasnt this a free broadcast to begin with?

talk about corporate arrogance at best.

they must be planning on releasing it to DVD and charging a fortune for it

[braider.livejournal.com]

HBO apparently forced them to remove that version. This one, however, was apparently recorded off a German television. This delights me to no end.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Great to see Pete still kicking it old-school and being part of this event. And Bruce Springsteen at his right hand was a nice bonus. And his grandson Tao to his left? Wow. Three generations of folk greats on one stage; coolness cubed.

I can understand them and everyone else there feeling for the first time in eight years that these lyrics can actually mean something again—that finally, this is our land again too and not just a country of, by and for right-wingers. I only hope BHO can live up to the immense hope and hype. (Hell, I hope he can just plain damn live past his first 100 days in office.)