The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #93653   Message #1804983
Posted By: Franz S.
08-Aug-06 - 11:04 PM
Thread Name: Songs & Jingles in Political Campaigns
Subject: RE: Songs & Jingles in Political Campaigns
In 1948 I was about seven and attending a "Saturday school" for workers' kids at Washington Hall in Seattle. I have a clear but disconnected memory of being in a children's choir that recorded what were probably Progressive Party campaign songs. I have no idea what became of those recordings, haven't been able to track them down. But on his Loafer's Glory radio program (Program #35, on the Progressive Movement) Utah Phillips played "The Battle Hymn of '48", sung by Paul Robeson:

There's a fresh breeze a-blowing all across this mighty land,
And it sings of peace and progress and prosperity at hand,
With security and plenty for the people to command,
For the people's march is on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah! (3x)
The people's march is on!

From the village, from the city, all the nation's voice has roared,
Down the rivers, 'cross the prairies (couldn't get this part)
We will march with Henry Wallace, we will fight with Gideon's            sword,
Fro the people's march is on!

I'm sure this came out of People's Songs (Pete Seeger et al.). I don't believe that such songs are meant to convert anyone so much as to fire up the faithful, and for that they do seem to work. As recently as a decade ago I was at a rally lustily singing "Sacaremos ese buey de Sacramento!" (We'll kick that ox out of Sacramento!) referring to Pete Wilson, the Republican candidate for governor of California. Wilson won, of course, and Henry Wallace lost, but that's not the point. Is it?