That Time Bernie Sanders Tried to Sing ‘This Land Is Your Land’

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By Maia Efrem January 26, 2016

If you’ve got the Bern real bad and Bernie Sanders’s thick Brooklyn accent on your TV screen is just not enough to satiate you, we have good news for you. You can download Sanders’s 1987 folk album and listen to his non-singing version of “This Land is Your Land” wherever you go.

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That’s right. The presidential candidate from Vermont recorded a folk album, “We Shall Overcome,” back when he was a young-ish mayor of Burlington, Vermont, restricting amplified performances in public parks and buildings. Sanders is basically Kevin Bacon in “Footloose” and brought back the music to Vermont.

The song made a special appearance on Monday night’s “The Tonight Show” for a Jimmy Fallon skit called Do Not Play this. “He has the voice of an angel. An angel that grew up in Brooklyn,” Fallon quipped.

Image by YouTube

The full album is on sale for less than $20 on Amazon or only $4.95 on iTunes.

For a snippet of the song fast forward to minute 3:20:

Maia Efrem is the former research editor and assistant to the editor and was also responsible for the Forward’s annual Salary Survey. Previously she served as the editor of Blognik Beat, a blog written by students who emigrated from or have ties to the Former Soviet Union. Maia is a graduate of Hunter College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.