I have decided long ago that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic experts.
I know the police cause you trouble They cause trouble everywhere But when you die and go to heaven You find no policeman there.
Uncle Sam took up the challenge in the year of ‘33 For the farmer and the factory and all of you and me. He said, “Roll along Columbia. You can ramble to the sea, But river while you’re ramblin’ you can do some work for me.”
Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.
Now as through this world I ramble, I see lots of funny men, Some rob you with a six gun, And some with a fountain pen.
This machine kills fascists.
All you can write is what you see.
If you walk across my camera I will flash the world your story.
As I went walking That ribbon of highway I saw above me The endless skyway I saw below me The lonesome valley This land was made for you and me.
I like to write about wherever I happen to be.
All about a human being is, it’s a great big hoping machine.
All of you cowboys, fight for your land.
Nobody living can ever stop me. As I go walking my freedom highway. Nobody living can make me turn back. This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land.
Left wing, right wing, chicken wing.
All of my words, if not well put nor well taken, are well meant.
I’d give my life just to lay my head tonight on a bed of California stars.
All of this talking about what’s up in the sky, or down in hell, for that matter, isn’t half as important as what’s right here, right now, right in front of your eyes. Things are tough. Folks broke. Kids hungry. Sick. Everything. And people has got to have more faith in one another, believe in each other. There’s a spirit of some kind we’ve all got. That’s got to draw us all together.
Then I got a little braver and made up songs telling what I thought was wrong and how to make it right, songs that said what everybody in the country was thinking. And this has held me ever since.
I’m down here looking at the Potomac River; they say George Washington threw a silver dollar across it once. It looks a little bit too far for me to do that trick, but maybe he could. After all, a dollar went further in those days.