They Dun’ Broke My Mirror
They was playin’ it again on the radio. That bright, clipped, whitewashed version of my song. Voices high and clean like they’d never choked on coal dust or gone to bed hungry. Harmony sweet enough to rot your teeth.
“This land is your land, this land is my land…”
I set my coffee down—cold, bitter, boiled too long—and let the cigarette burn between my fingers. Let it burn down ’til the ash caught my skin, just so I could feel something besides that slow rage risin’ up in me again.
They never sing the good parts. Not the parts that matter. They never did.
It was 1940, and I was on the road again, thumbin’ outta East Texas with a busted boot and a belly full of nothin’. Hitchin’ rides from oil men and drifters, sleepin’ in culverts, train yards, brush camps. I’d picked peaches in California, shoveled snow in Denver, shoveled shit in Topeka. Folks think I was a singer. Nah. I was a worker first. A watcher. A man with ears.
And what I kept hearin’—every town, every truck stop, every goddamn jukebox—was God Bless America. Kate Smith singin’ it like it came straight from heaven, like America was some pure, shining gift. But all I saw was land fenced off and folks fenced out.
I remember it plain. February. Cold. Pittsburgh. I was layin’ under a billboard off Route 30. The wind was knifin’ through my coat like it had a grudge. And I was thinkin’ how that song don’t speak for me. Don’t speak for the men sleepin’ next to me. Don’t speak for the Negro families tryin’ to farm sand in Oklahoma, or the Mexicans gettin’ chased outta towns they built, or the Okies in California livin’ ten to a tent and watchin’ their babies go blue from the cold.
God bless America?
God bless that?
I had a scrap of paper. A flyer from a church food line. I flipped it over. Pulled the pencil stub from my coat pocket and started writin’.
This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California, to the New York island…
I wasn’t bein’ cute. I was layin’ claim. If they could say God blessed it, I could damn well say it belonged to all of us. That was the trick, see. Write it like a lullaby. Make it sound like a hymn. But slip the truth in the verses. Cut deep when nobody’s lookin’.
I wrote six of ‘em that night.
As I was walkin’ I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said “No Trespassin’.”
But on the other side, it didn’t say nothin’—
That side was made for you and me.
You think I made that up? Hell no. That sign was real. Outside a refinery in Tulsa. I needed to piss and sleep and warm my damn hands. The sign said Private Property. The dogs said worse.
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,
By the relief office I saw my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there askin’—
Is this land made for you and me?
That was in Chicago. That steeple was limestone and tall as pride, and the bread line wrapped around the block. Little kids holdin’ onto their mama’s skirts, eyes hollow like they’d already learned to stop hopin’. I wrote that verse with frost in my beard and tears I didn’t let fall.
They don’t sing that one. Not on the Fourth of July. Not at the ballparks or the county fairs. Those verses got buried deeper than the men who died broke and bitter.
Some time later, they found the chorus. Cleaned it up. Trimmed it like a hedge. And once it was safe enough—once it could sit next to a flag and not offend the neighbors—they slapped it on a record and sold it back to the people I wrote it for.
This land is your land, this land is my land…
And now it plays in classrooms. In Congress. Hell, I heard it at a fuckin’ burger commercial. My song. My fire. Turned into a jingle.
I went to a school one time, back when I could still stand without help. They had the kids singin’ it for some assembly—parents takin’ pictures, teacher cryin’. And when they got to the end of that third verse, they just… stopped.
So I asked the teacher. Said, “Why’d you leave out the one about the sign?”
She said, “Oh, we just teach the happy verses.”
I nodded. Smiled a little. But inside I was screamin’.
They think I was just singin’ about trees and dirt. But I was singin’ about the blood in the soil. About the hands that planted it and never got to eat. About the sweat that built this country and the boots that trampled the ones who did the buildin’.
They think I wrote a love song. I didn’t. I wrote a mirror. And what it showed? Ain’t always pretty.
But you know what? It’s still true.
And when I’m gone, and they’re still singin’ the clean version, maybe some guy that ain’t even born yet will stumble on the rest of the verses—see the truth I tried to tell. Maybe he’ll write about it. Maybe he’ll ask why they left out the parts I most wanted everyone to hear. Maybe he’ll write his own verse. About his own hunger. His own war. His own pain. His own wall.
This land ain’t your land.
This land ain’t my land.
They sold us lies and
It sure ain’t free, man.
They hate the gay man.
They hate the Black man.
The foreign-born man and every poor man.
They hate the women. And most religions.
This land’s not free for you or me.
And then, maybe—just maybe—he’ll write it loud enough to make it finally matter.
Until then, I’ll sit here and listen.
And let the cigarette, like the country, burn. They dun’ broke my mirror. So I s’pose the real question is can you really break a mirror? Or is the result of breakage, a million little reflections—the seeds of mirrors yet to see?
Author’s Note:
“They Dun’ Broke My Mirror” is a dramatized monologue rooted in historical truth and artistic reverence. Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land” in 1940 as a response to what he saw as the false patriotism and sanitized optimism of songs like “God Bless America.” He believed in the dignity of the working class and used music as a mirror to reflect the injustice and inequality he saw across the American landscape. This story imagines an older, weary Guthrie looking back on how his most famous song was scrubbed clean of its hardest truths—and how, even in its mutilated form, Much like how Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA is often misread, Guthrie’s song—stripped of its hardest verses—still carries a seed of rebellion.
The final verse I wrote in the story—is a fictional imagining of how the character’s fire might echo forward into a new generation. It is not meant to mimic his style, but to reflect his spirit: direct, unflinching, and unapologetically honest.
To honor that spirit fully though, what follows are the original six verses Woody wrote in 1940—some of which were long left out of the public versions. Thanks for reading.
“This Land Is Your Land” – Woody Guthrie (1940 Original Lyrics)
Verse 1
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Verse 2
As I was walkin’ that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
Verse 3
I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
Verse 4
Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted, said: Private Property
But on the backside, it didn’t say nothin’
That side was made for you and me.
Verse 5
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people
By the relief office I seen my people
As they stood there hungry, I stood there askin’
Is this land made for you and me?
Verse 6
Nobody livin’ can ever stop me
As I go walkin’ that freedom highway
Nobody livin’ can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
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