johncharles
Congratulations on being on the march in London - wish we'd been able to be there - but The Irish Sea etc......
I think the songs we sing on these events have a number of functions.
In the immediate situation they help you bond with your fellow demonstrators, with the people you are marching with. I still remember the warmth and companionship I felt from the Aldermaston and Holy Loch demonstrations through the songs we sang.
They can also give you (they did me anyway) a feeling that you are part of a history, an attempt to improve the lives of all of us, and in some way, to have played a miniscule part in shaping that history - to have stood up and been counted.
And yes, of course we think about the people and events they are about: the miners struggles throughout history, Joe Hill and the IWW, the Mexican and Californian fruit pickers.....
One song that has remained in my repertoire for most of the time I have been singing is The Ballad of Sharpville - it can still make me choke up, even to think about it:

"Sixty seven Africans lay dead there on the ground;
Apartheid's harvest for the day,
Three times their number wounded lay,
Their blood stained all around...."

Magic!!
Jim Carroll