This Land That I Love: Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, and the Story of Two American Anthems

Shaw’s meandering book simply retells the well-known story that Woody Guthrie wrote his epic “This Land Is Your Land” as a rejoinder to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” Side by side, he traces the similarities between Berlin’s and Guthrie’s upbringings, comparing some of the forces that may have led each writer to what would eventually become his most recognizable song. Berlin was a Russian émigré who rose from homelessness to wealth, and Guthrie fled the Oklahoma Dust Bowl and a broken family to fame and something like fortune in New York City. When they were young, both men “busked for money, making up parodies of popular songs, and were known for their quick wit and eagerness to entertain.” Berlin wrote “God Bless America” for Kate Smith so that she could have a “special song for her annual Armistice Day broadcast.” Guthrie wrote the first draft of his anthem in February 1940 after spending days frozen on the streets and not feeling as if he lived in “sweet America.” He cast his lyrics in a tune modified from the Carter Family’s “When the World’s on Fire,” in his early sarcastic response to Berlin’s song. Along the way, Shaw digresses unprofitably into discussions of other anthems that have shaped America: “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Shaw’s uninspiring book loses its thread in its unfocused structure and reveals no important new insights about the songs, the singers, or their relation to each other. Agent: Paul Bresnick, Paul Bresnick Literary. (Nov.)