More Than Your Land
This land is more than your land or mine
It’s done fine on its own for several billion years
It’s given life to us all and someday when we die
It will be made from you and me
Words by Bret Hesla. Tune: unknown origin
© 1990 Bret Hesla. All rights reserved. Use with permission, please.
Licensed via OneLicense.net. Contact: Bret.hesla@gmail.com.
This is a partner song that works as a counter-melody duet with “This Land Is Your Land.” With these lyrics, it’s a nice song to have in your public singing back pocket. And it’s fun to sing.
I didn’t write the melody, and I don’t know who did; I heard it back in the 80s with a different set of words.
And if you’re singing about ecology and a land ethic, here are some new verses you can use, to the tune of This Land Is Your Land.
A healthy topsoil is made of bodies.
And moldy corpses and cornstalks rotting
And when we kick off, we’re gonna go there, too
And this land will be made from you and me.
To buy food local is such a chore
We’d rather choose food with a price that’s lower
And so we buy from the factory growers
And squeeze the best stewards off the land.
If you agree with this simple chorus
Then let’s protect our farmland and forests
And choose together the way before us
The green road for the red, white and blue