BELOVED COMRADE


by Lewis Allen (w)& Fred Katz (m) (Abel Meeropol)


The song Beloved Comrade has words written by Abel Meeropol under his pen name, Lewis Allen and is associated with the Spanish Civil War as a result of its having appeared on several records about the war and by virtue of its having been performed at memorial meetings of International Brigaders in memory of their dead comrades.

Here is a link to another Mudcat thread which I have used to collect information about the origin and provenance of the song. Origins: Beloved Comrade: Spanish Civil War Song?

That thread includes links to a recording of the song by Josh White and the full set of lyrics.

The current state of information uncovered in that thread is that the song is by Lewis Allen & Fred Katz and was probably written in 1944 for a radio play scripted by Langston Hughes about race relations in the US army. However, Alan Lomax is credited with having helped in the selection of songs for this BBC broadcast and it is theoretically possible that the song had been written at an earlier date specifically about the Spanish Civil War On another Mudcat thread Joe Offer kindly posted the entries from some People's Songs publications which say that the song was written for combatants of the Spanish Civil War These may be seen using the following link Mudcat thread with Peoples Songs reference HERE
Thanks Joe
Any further firm evidence would be welcome.