The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #19551   Message #375703
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
16-Jan-01 - 06:22 PM
Thread Name: Gospel Origin-Civil Rights & Labor Songs
Subject: RE: Gospel Origin-Civil Rights & Labor Songs
Well of course there's Hallellulah I'm a bum, in two versions - what I take to be the earlier versiobn and tye and the Wobbly version in the Little Red Songbook, which may or may not have been by Joe Hill.

Actually in a way I've always thought the earlier version has the more revolutionary message. "How the hell can I work when the skies are so blue." Puts the work ethic in its place.

Anyway they're both parodies of a revivalist hymn I believe, called Revive Us - but I've never come across it.