It has been used as a protest song ever since. Woody would have included everyone, really, although he wasn't quite up to later equality ideas. Mostly, he was railing against the rich and for the poor working people. That's where he was coming from.

I don't know that any part of that song has ever been censored, though. A lot of rich, powerful people have certainly disliked it. Still do.

The song has had a wide range of lyrics. Even Woody changed them from time to time. It's a people's song, and people wrote new verses and changed it to suit their own needs. The core, however, remains the same. It's ALL our land. None of it belongs to anyone. It all belongs to everyone. You can see why it wasn't popular with some.

It's a pivotal song that helped lead up to a broader and broader push for equality and equity. But, it has never been just one song.

Guthrie left some out, then put them back wrote new ones, etc. It lends itself to adding verses, like a lot of such songs do.

I'm not sure which verse you're talking about, though.

Ah, the "private property" one. That's one of the ones Guthrie cut and added from time to time. The reality always was that there was property that was owned by individuals and property that wasn't. In one view of how society should be, there would be no private ownership of land. That, however, has not really existed for a very, very long time, if it ever did.

For example, the original inhabitants of North America did not have individual ownership of land. However, some land was tribal land and other tribes were not welcome there. Same thing, really.

It is human nature to own things, I believe. If you find a rock and chip it into a useful shape, you're going to consider it to be your rock and object if someone tries to take it from you. You have added value to it through your efforts. People also alter the land to be more productive or a better location for a place to live. They have the same "ownership" feelings.

I think that is always how humans have been. Probably always how they will be, too.

We can go some places with ideas, but not everywhere.

Now, certainly, there may have been some ulterior motives as to which verses were cut, but there was an economic reason too.

The "official" lyrics changed from time to time.

Everyone picked up that song in the 1960s. Verses got added. Verses got subtracted. Everyone sang it.

Even dorky teenaged kids like me were singing in folk song groups. My group even sang on a side stage at the Monterey Folk Festival. I saw Joan Baez standing nearby, watching us for a few minutes.

Groups like mine were mining things like the Lomax collections of American Folk songs to find new material that not everyone was singing. It was fun time, I learned to play 5-string banjo from Pete Seeger's book. I went on to learn Scruggs-style from some random guy in a music store. Our guitar player was normally a clarinet player, who learned enough chords to deal with the simple music.

We were popular in my little town and the surrounding area, and got to sing in all sorts of places. Then, we all moved away to go to whatever colleges we went to. I dragged my banjo around in the USAF. I even had to play it for the Turkish customs folks to prove I played and wasn't sneaking banjos into the country. That turned into a minor concert in the Istanbul airport. I played the theme from Beverley Hillbillies, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Cripple Creek, to a small crowd of people going through customs, and then went on my way.

Later, I taught a couple of Turkish string players the basics in exchange for them teaching me how to play Turkish folk instruments. Music is a universal language.