I Fed America's Most Beloved Folk Songs Into an AI Sensitivity Filter and Now I Require Therapy

A first-person account of what happens when you let a machine with a corporate wellness mindset near Woody Guthrie

I want to be clear that I did this voluntarily. No one assigned me this story. I woke up one Tuesday morning, poured a coffee, and thought: what if the songs that built American cultural identity were run through the same linguistic processing that generates your company's Slack guidelines?

Three hours later I was staring at a sanitized version of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" that had replaced every potentially problematic element with "affirming, forward-compatible language" and I had to go lie down on the floor of my apartment for a while.

This is my report.

The Methodology (Such As It Was)

I used two widely available AI text tools — which I will not name because their legal departments are faster than mine — and applied the maximum available sensitivity and inclusivity filters. I then submitted each output to our fictional but spiritually very real Harmony Dynamics HR Compliance Portal, staffed by a composite corporate HR persona I named Brenda, who has a master's degree in Organizational Behavior and has not laughed since 2019.

Brenda's approval stamps are as follows:

• ✅ APPROVED — Cleared for all internal communications and mandatory team-building retreats
• ⚠️ CONDITIONAL APPROVAL — Acceptable pending one (1) additional revision pass and sign-off from the Equity & Belonging subcommittee
• ❌ RETURNED FOR REVISION — Contains language that may create a hostile environment for one or more protected categories, including but not limited to: people who find mountains intimidating, individuals with complicated relationships to horses, and anyone for whom the concept of "coming" carries unintended connotations

All results below are genuine AI outputs. I did not embellish them. I did not need to.

Test Subject #1: "This Land Is Your Land" — Woody Guthrie (1940)

Original lyric (verse 1): This land is your land, this land is my land / From California to the New York island / From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters / This land was made for you and me

AI Sensitivity Output: This land is our collectively stewarded land, held in trust across all communities / From the western coastal region to the northeastern island territories / From the ancient-growth arboreal zones to the warm southern water bodies / This land exists in relationship with all people and the ecosystems that sustain us

Brenda's Assessment: ✅ APPROVED, with a note that "New York island" has been flagged in a previous audit for implying geographic hierarchy. The revised "northeastern island territories" is more equitable. Brenda also appreciates the acknowledgment of ecosystems, which aligns with our Q3 Sustainability Commitment Framework.

My Assessment: Woody Guthrie was a man who rode freight trains and wrote songs about the Dust Bowl. He would have had thoughts about this. Those thoughts would not have been printable in a company newsletter.

The original song, famously, had a verse about private property that most people don't sing. The AI, when prompted to include all verses, quietly omitted it. Apparently even the algorithm knows some hills aren't worth dying on.

Test Subject #2: "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain"

Original lyric: She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes / She'll be driving six white horses when she comes / Oh, we'll all come out to meet her when she comes / We'll be killing the old red rooster when she comes

AI Sensitivity Output: A person of unspecified gender presentation will be arriving via the elevated terrain corridor at a time of their choosing / They will be accompanied by six horses of varying pigmentation, assuming equine companionship is a personal choice they have made freely / We will gather as a community to welcome them, respecting their preferred mode of arrival / We will be preparing a plant-forward meal in honor of the occasion, in consultation with our resident rooster, whose continued wellbeing is a community priority

Brenda's Assessment: ⚠️ CONDITIONAL APPROVAL — "Elevated terrain corridor" tests well. The plant-forward meal pivot is appreciated. However, Brenda notes that "gathering as a community" may carry unintended connotations for employees with social anxiety disorders or those who experienced negative group dynamics in previous employment. Suggest revising to "optionally gathering" or "gathering at one's own comfort level and capacity."

My Assessment: The rooster has been granted more institutional protection than most middle managers I know. Also, "elevated terrain corridor" is doing a lot of heavy lifting where the word "mountain" used to be, and I think we should all sit with that for a moment.

The original song, for context, is believed to derive from a 19th-century spiritual about the Second Coming of Christ. I did not tell the AI this. I feel it would have caused an incident.

Test Subject #3: "Home on the Range"

Original lyric: Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam / Where the deer and the antelope play / Where seldom is heard a discouraging word / And the skies are not cloudy all day

AI Sensitivity Output: Please provide me with a dwelling space in a location where free-ranging bison are permitted to exist without interference / Where cervids and pronghorn antelopes engage in self-directed recreational activities / Where verbal communications are consistently affirming and psychologically safe / And where meteorological conditions support adequate natural light for wellbeing

Brenda's Assessment: ❌ RETURNED FOR REVISION — "Please provide me" implies a passive dependency that conflicts with our Employee Self-Sufficiency Initiative. "Dwelling space" is acceptable but "home" is preferred in our latest Belonging Audit, as it tests higher on warmth metrics. Additionally, Brenda has concerns about the phrase "free-ranging bison" in the context of a workplace song, as it may be triggering for employees who have experienced uncontrolled animal encounters. Please revise.

My Assessment: This is the state song of Kansas. Kansas has been through enough.

Test Subject #4: "Oh! Susanna" — Stephen Foster (1848)

I will be honest with you: I did not make it through this one. The AI, upon encountering the original lyrics, generated a 400-word content warning, a revised version in which Susanna's geographic origin was replaced with "a location that does not reinforce directional bias," and a suggestion that the banjo be referred to as "a stringed instrument with complex cultural histories that merit ongoing community dialogue."

Brenda approved it immediately. Brenda said it was the most compliant submission she had received all quarter.

I closed the laptop. I went outside. A bird was singing something in a tree — unfiltered, unrevised, approved by no committee. I stood there for a while.

What We Have Learned

American folk music was, at its core, built on directness. Hard land, hard weather, hard work, and the kind of language that didn't have time for a second draft. The songs survived wars, depressions, and the invention of country radio. It seems unlikely they will be destroyed by an HR portal.

But the exercise does illuminate something worth noticing: when institutional language policing gets applied to cultural artifacts, it doesn't just change the words. It removes the texture — the specific, the local, the human. A mountain becomes an "elevated terrain corridor." A rooster becomes a "community priority." A home becomes a "dwelling space."

And somewhere in that translation, the song stops being about anything at all.

Brenda, for what it's worth, gave the whole project a 4.7 out of 5 on the Inclusive Communication Rubric.

The one deduction was for using the word "old" in reference to the red rooster.

Ageism, apparently, is where we draw the line.

Woke Watch Daily's AI Sensitivity Testing Lab is staffed entirely by people who still know all the words to "This Land Is Your Land," including the verse about private property. Especially that verse.