"This Land Is Your Land" is one of the United States' most famous folk songs. Its lyrics were written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, based on an existing melody, a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire", in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically wrote "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land."In 2002, "This Land Is Your Land" was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. Melody Guthrie's melody was very similar to the melody of "Oh, My Loving Brother", a Baptist gospel hymn that had been recorded by the Carter Family as "When the World's On Fire" and had inspired their "Little Darlin', Pal of Mine." He used the same melody for the chorus and the verses. Guthrie's song, however, had a different melodic structure from the hymn or the similar Carter Family melodies, and he used only the first half of those melodies in his song...