Music has always been a staple to the town of New Ulm, the once Polka Capital of the United States. The Minnesota Music Hall of Fame sits on the corner of 1st N and Broadway, and live music can be found at German park, the Grand, and countless other locations.

With it being the 250th anniversary of America’s independence, now is a time to explore how America’s connotation has changed throughout the years and what better way to review these changes through the lens of songs about America.

Two of the most famous American tunes are “America, the Beautiful,” published by Katharine Lee Bates and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land”.

It is said that “America, the Beautiful” was written by Katharine Lee Bates following a trip she took to Pikes Peak in Colorado. Bates made the trip with fellow university professors and noted that although tired, the view overlooking America filled her with inspiration and awe. The imagery of “waves of grain” and “purple mountain majesties” in her writing refer to sights she saw while atop the peak. 

Bates’ song is one of the United States’ quintessential songs, often performed during popular American events such as the super bowl. While “America, the Beautiful” is thought of as overtly patriotic, Bates balanced national pride with her role as an activist for reform.

Born two years before the Civil War, Bates grew up in America during its bloodiest time. Hailing from Massachusetts, she was raised on the same soil where founding fathers fought British taxation less than 100 years prior. It only made sense that Bates would continue fighting for traditional American ideals, such as freedom and equal rights. 

Bates wrote of harsh working conditions for women in factories, combatted harmful stereotypes about the Spanish in a column of the New York Times during the Spanish American War, and was an advocate for peace into the 20th century. 

The activist shared the founding American trait of perseverance. She looked at a county that was still new and raw. It had issues, but these issues were worth combatting, as the people in her home state of Massachusetts had done a century before. 

Her pride for American ancestors and their hard work comes through in the lines “O beautiful for pilgrim feet / whose stern impassioned stress / a thoroughness for freedom beat / across the wilderness.” 

Bates wrote of America during a time of immense turmoil, but also during a time where the general population was not yet disillusioned with the nation. She also wrote during a time where religion was ubiquitous and went hand in hand with patriotism, calling God to “mend thine every flaw.” 

A little less than 50 years later another American, forged by one of the nation’s most significant moments, penned a song that takes a critical look inwards while simultaneously dispensing hopeful optimism outward. 

Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” was written as a reflection of a more accurate America, one he felt was not represented in the song “God Bless America” by Irving Berlin. Guthrie’s song did not gloss over the reality of hardships facing America, but instead leaned into them as a unifying factor that could bring together the American people.

Written in 1940, Guthrie’s song called back to life during the Great Depression. Born in 1912, Gutherie spent the seminal years of his twenties hopping trains and seeing the damage inflicted by the Depression. 

Lines such as “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 asking / Is this land made for you and me?” represent the uncertainty around America’s future, but the song also offers optimism. 

“This Land is Your Land,” as the title suggests, is a song for the American people. The change from the correct use of “saw” to the incorrect use of “seen” in the previous passage draws attention to education disparity, which symbolizes Guthrie’s alignment with all individuals, regardless of education status.  Guthrie finds class and education differences insignificant to an individual’s worth, which was an impactful sentiment following a time when unemployment in America was at an all time high of 25%. 

Just as Katharine Lee Bates drew on the landscape of the United States for her song “America, The Beautiful,” Guthrie too utilizes American landscapes, in his case to emphasize how surroundings reflect states of mood. Guthrie turned to nature at a time when nature seemed to turn on America.

The Dust Bowl devastated American agriculture, though nature was not fully to blame. Risky agricultural practices of the time, brought about by economic hardship, produced a combination of factors that resulted in dust storms. 

Guthrie refers to these conditions in the lines “And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling / as the fog was lifting a voice was chanting / this land was made for me and you.” These lyrics suggest American optimism, that all things pass and hardships fade.

What does last, is nature’s beauty and the unity of humanity. So Guthrie turns to nature, and to his fellow Americans, calling us to remember that despite struggles, we must lean on one another instead of assigning blame.

— Dylan Jackson is a contributor to the New Ulm Journal