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Work Songs & Labor Movement
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Subject: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: GaryD Date: 12 Oct 97 - 04:40 PM I was exploring Slavery Thread a while back & got to thinking about other forms of slavery (some self imposed)..thought it might be fun to start discussion of work songs & labor songs. I love the sea songs as some of you may have noted, but other work songs like Paddy working on the railway are just as interesting. I had almost been convinced that work songs like that had disappeared from the scenee when I heard a song on MN Public Radio about something like coding software.done in the shout song style..Anybody know it, or care to jump in? |
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE IDLE WELDER^^ From: Barry Date: 12 Oct 97 - 07:52 PM That song about coding software would be White Collar Holler. It's in the DT. It was taken from the railroad work song Lining Track. Where do you go with this? It seems that you're looking at not only work songs (songs used as tools while working) but also songs about work (ex. cowboys singing songs for pleasure or lonely cowboys singing to their cattle This song is about work & comes from the singing of Ricky Rackin, if he's looking in maybe he'll let on where it came from. The Idle Wielder I'm an idle wielder as many a man knows I've no to eat & I've wore out my clothes I'd stand in the bread lines if there were bread lines to hand But there's nobody cares if I fall or stand I'm an idle wielder God knows I've tried hard You can find me each morning at the gates of the yard There ain't no work for you lad, sir, I'm a wielder to trade I helped build the best ships the Clyde ever made Work harder they told us to meet the deadline Six nights & a Sunday we'll pay double time So I worked & I burned my hands blistered & sore We met the deadline we built the Q4 Now when I was a young lad my heart swelled with pride To think I helped build the best ships that were made on the Clyde A wielder had status when there was wielding required Now the wielding's all done & the wielder's been fired HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone, 27-Jul-01. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Shula Date: 12 Oct 97 - 08:00 PM Dear Gary D., Great theme! How about Ain't No More Cane On This Brazos, My Boy" (in Dt), a rhythmic, blues-y work song about prison-detail cane-cutters in the deep south? Or Jim Croce's "Workin' at the Car Wash Blues"? Or, speaking of slavery and enforced work, "Go Down Moses"? Or the struggle to find a livelihood in difficult times, as in "Times A' Gettin" Hard, Boys"? For kids, there are things like, "I been Workin' On The Railroad" and, (Forgive me, Peter T., wherever you are!), Disney's "Hi Ho! Hi Ho!" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (know it's not folk -- yet)? Or the contrast of a workingman's dreams and their fulfillment in his daughter's life, in "My Father Always Promised Us That We Would Live In France"? Or the wistfulness of "It Goes Like It Goes" (which I just learned from a young friend) from the movie, Norma Rae, which is about a struggle to unionize southern textile workers? Or the wonderful "Gum-Boat Clogeroo," recently posted by Tim Jaques, about celebrating lobster fishermen? Whew! Someb'dy else take a turn! I'm outta breath! KUTGW, Shula |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: John Nolan Date: 12 Oct 97 - 08:48 PM The Scottish Trades Union Congress, to mark its centenary (1897-1997), has issued an album/CD "If It Wisnae For The Union" - 18 tracks on the labor movement theme from as many artists...Runrig, Gordeanna McCulloch, Eric Bogle, Dick Gaughan and Arthur Johnstone, to name a handful . A Greentrax recording well worth ordering. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: susan of DT Date: 12 Oct 97 - 08:59 PM try @work in the DT. we used to have @labor, but I think all those got changed to @work, but you can try both. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Helen Date: 13 Oct 97 - 01:52 AM I have (but lent it to my sister, will I ever get it back?) a brilliant book which is a collection of Pete Seeger's working songs, and songs about or from the labour movement. It is a huge hardback book, not sheet music. Worth checking out if you can find it (inter-library loans perhaps?) but it was published about 10 years ago or more, so the remaining copies may be pushing up daisies in the publishing company's compost heap by now. A sad end :-( Helen |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Joe Offer Date: 13 Oct 97 - 04:20 AM Helen - could the book you're talking about be "Carry It On, the Story of America's Working People in Song and Picture," by Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser? This is a good-sized paperback, some 250 pages of songs with a bit of commentary mixed in. This one is still available from Sing Out! You might want to take a look at their web site sometime - they have a number of publications available. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: rich r Date: 13 Oct 97 - 12:05 PM Just getting in to this sight recently should qualify as work. Perhaps someone can write a song about it. I would like to mention another book and some current CDs that have more thyan the usual number of work/labor songs. The book is "Hard Hitting Songs For Hard-Hit People" by A Lomax. W Guthrie & P Seeger (Oak PUblications 1967). Because of its age you most likely will have to check a library for it. I found it in a college library here in North Dakota, so it should be around more populous areas as well. Three relatively recent CD's I think deserve mention. One is "The Way It Is" by John McCutcheon. John has many other work/labor songs on his other recordings as well, but this one has a very high concentration of them (since he wrote most of them, they are not folk songs but might be considered "folk" songs with the quotes allowing everyone to define as broadly or narrowly as they wish). Two other great recordings have been put out by Bruce (Utah) Phillips. The oldest one is "We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years" is a collection of songs of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies). It was recorded live in Vancouver, BC in 1981 and originally issued as an LP (Aural Tradition ATR 103). I have seen a CD reissue of it in stores in the last few years. The LP has a great 12 page insert of photos, historical background, lyrics etc. I do not know if all of that has been consdensed down to barely readable size for the CD. The second CD is quite new. Phillips combines with Rosalie Sorrels on "The Long Memory" (Redhouse Records, 1996). I am sure that many of the songs from Phillips' 2 recordings are in the database, but I haven't methodically gone through the list. I will include here the "Wobbly Doxology" (tune - Old Hundreth/Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow). This may be in DT but is short so duplication will not be excessive. Praise boss when morning work-bells chime Praise him for bits of overtime Praise him whose wars we love to fight Praise him, fat leech and parasite.
rich r |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Bert Date: 13 Oct 97 - 12:13 PM There are quite a few in Tom Glazer's book "Songs of Peace, Freedom and Protest". |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: dick greenhaus Date: 13 Oct 97 - 01:19 PM Our keyword system is far from complete, but @labor, @work @union and @IWW will reap a reasonably rich harvest of song. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Nonie Rider Date: 13 Oct 97 - 06:24 PM While not a union song, Stan Rogers' "The Idiot" is a good work song; a guy leaves his green Eastern town to work in the Texas oilfields, because despite all he's giving up, a man needs to work rather than go on the dole. Myself, I think it's a poor choice of title for the song; he uses the term ironically, but you wouldn't know it from just the title. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: GaryD Date: 13 Oct 97 - 10:25 PM Wow!..I love it..I sort of forgot how vast the subject material is..I am downloading what we have so far, cuz I'd like to follow up on your suggestions, recordings & books. Shula, I think Hi Ho certainly qualifies with me..about first time I thought about work..John how would I go about finding that Greentrax..Joe, I already have Rise up Singing from there & love all things Seeger..I'll check it out. & Rich...I love it..with a knowledge of the melody, yet!..Describes some of my Bosses to a T! One final comment for this entry..not really a song, but a poem written by Jack London (Author Call of the Wild: heavily involved in labor movement)..starts, "After God created the toad & vampire, he had an awful substance left over with which he made a scab..." I've tried for years to locate it..Any help? ..Come to think of it, might be a great song, too! |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Helen Date: 14 Oct 97 - 02:55 AM I found the Pete Seeger book, Carry It On - a paperback for $US14.95 at the Book Stacks site - I'm amazed that it is still available. http://www.books.com/scripts/news.exe?sid~muQq5m9DBQvjqUR Helen |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Mark Gregory Date: 14 Oct 97 - 11:25 PM maybe you'll be intested in a project I'm just beginning. A collection of union songs at www.chepd.mq.edu.au/boomerang/unionsong So far 34 songs most with music and notes and many with quicktime MIDI sound The beginnings of a bibliography and discography and lots of union and song site links around the globe Mark
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Wolfgang Hell Date: 15 Oct 97 - 04:37 AM There's a book on industrial songs compiled by Ewan MacColl (and Peggy Seeger?), the title might be "Shuttle and Cage". I'll post a working song called "Tunnel Tigers" in an extra thread. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Steve D. Date: 15 Oct 97 - 06:42 AM A great subject, union songs. 'Blackleg Miner' is a good start (either Ewan MacColl or early Steeleye Span). There are just so many great labour songs though, through from good old (I dreamed I saw) Joe Hill (Check out Billy Bragg's rewritten 'I dreamed I saw Phil Ochs'), up to 'Coal not Dole' (Oysterband) via all those great Seeger and Guthrie tunes. I'll have to give this one some thought! |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Frank in the swamps Date: 15 Oct 97 - 06:57 AM Gilbert Chase, in his book "America's Music" quotes a local rock band from Detroit who converted the Rolling Stones song "Miss You" I work Buick all day long Building car doors makes you strong I'm a flintoid. Then I go out for a ride with my buddies by my side We're all flintoids, yeah! I knew a fella in upstate New York who was a writer for a newspaper, he wrote a song with the line... Been punchin' at this keyboard 'till I think it's punchin' me. I guess it'll never end, so long as somebody's tired of makin' 'bout a dollar a day. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: RED FLY THE BANNERS O^^^ From: Charles Date: 15 Oct 97 - 12:40 PM There's the communist propaganda version of green grow the rushes O... I prefer the version I remember to the one in the DT: I'll sing you one O
Some older friends from Manchester tell me the song dates back from the 1920 & 1930s, and was written as propaganda rather than parody. Parody came later, maybe the last three verses (11-13) and (some of) the DT version. Here are some of the references: 13. Trotsky was assassinated with a pick-axe. Gruesome but it comes at the very end of the song. 11. Moscow's soccer team. For you American readers who don't know how many players there are in a game of soccer ;-) 5. After the 1917 revolution, the USSR was industrialised by a succession of 5 year plans. BTW, since 1945 France also has had 5 year plans (they aren't coercitive, they are used in allocate subsidies to industry). It sort of works. 4. Soviet industrialisation was fast indeed in the 1920s. Maybe soviet refusal to pay foreign debts contracted before the revolution had something to do with it. 3. Bread, peace, & land, Lenin's 1917 promises. And the three human rights in Soviet's eyes. It was a piece or Soviet ideology: the human rights of the U.N. 1947 declaration are irrealistic (work, education) or meaningless (name, nationality). The USSR didn't respect them, but respected (allegedly) the three basic, simple rights Lenin had promised.
Phew. hadn't realised there was so much to it. Anyone has an idea what the 9-day general strike or the 6 Tolpudell martyrs are? Charles.
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: John Nolan Date: 15 Oct 97 - 06:35 PM GaryD:The Scottish Trades Union Council website is at http://www.demon.co.uk/stuc/ where you can read more about the centenary recording. It can be had direct from Greentrax Recordings, Cockenzie Business Center, Edinburgh Road, Cockenzie, East Lothian, EH31 0HK, Scotland. Some record stores and book shops carry it, too. I got mine in Parnie Street, Glasgow, just along from Adam McNaughtan's second-hand book store, but I can't recall the shop's name. If you're in that neighborhood, you're a luckier man than I - stop at nearby Babbity Bowster's and have a pint. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Will Date: 15 Oct 97 - 07:55 PM Re the Idiot. The nationalist part of me can't resist pointing out that the song is about someone leaving the Canadian maritimes to find work in the Canadian west, rather than Texas. Calgary might be Dallas-north, but Alberta ain't Texas. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Nonie Rider Date: 15 Oct 97 - 08:04 PM Canadian west? Sure! I'd missed the place references, and just heard the "cowboy clothes" phrase. Sorry for the misinfo. In NON-folk, Sting puts a lot of worker concerns into his songs, from the shipbuilding father in "The Island of Souls" to the coal miners in "We Work the Black Seam Together." |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Will Date: 15 Oct 97 - 08:27 PM Hi, Nonie. No sweat. But I like the song (The Idiot) a lot. Stan does a really good job of getting at the bitter-sweet reality for many people in the Maritimes. The provinces (Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, New Brunswick) are wonderful places to live, but its hard for many people to find permanent good jobs. A lot of people have figured out how to survive through a combination of shorter-term work and unemployment insurance, but this can become a dead-end. So, many leave ... for Toronto, for Alberta, for B.C. And, once gone, few go back to stay. Of course, those of us who live or have lived in Toronto, Alberta, and B.C. figure they are better off anyway, but that's a different story ... As you noted, the "idiot" reference is ironic. Stan believed that it was better to be independent than dependent, even if you have to leave home to do it. Which, of course, is the same thing that drove most of our ancestors to this continent in the first place. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Bert Date: 16 Oct 97 - 12:21 PM The TolPuddle Martyrs were some farm labourers from Tolpuddle in Dorset who were exiled to Botany Bay for trying to for a union. Long time ago, can't remember the date. I think it was one of first attempts at forming a union in England. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Susan of California Date: 16 Oct 97 - 05:07 PM When my youngest child was about three she loved the Woody Guthrie song "Union Maid" and once sang it at the fellowship hall at our church when someone made the mistake of leaving a microphone turned on... we were quite embarassed, but she was loving all the eyes on her, the blue haired ladies didn't appreciate the lyrics! Here they are, as best as I can remember them.... There once was a union maid who never was afraid Of the goons and the ginks and the company finks and the deputy sheriff who made the raid She went to the union hall, where the meeting it was called.... And when the company boys came round, she always stood her ground Chorus: well you can't scare me I'm stickin to the union , stickin to the union....To the union till the day I die. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: LaMarca Date: 16 Oct 97 - 05:36 PM Barry, is The Idle Wielder (=welder in Scots dialect?) to the tune of "Four Loom Weaver"?
There's an entire subset of Out-of-Work songs; they're one of the kinds of songs that unfortunately never seem to lose relevancy. Some examples:
Miner's songs about pit closings:
Mill closings:
The death of the fishing industry:
No work in general because of lousy economy: Some good recordings of workers' songs have been put out by Joe Glazer (co-author of "Songs of Work and Freedom" with Edith Fowke and a Legend in His Own Mind); we have Louis Killen's "Gallant Lads Are We" and Magpie's "Workin' My Life Away". Another great collection recently re-issued on CD by Topic is "The Iron Muse" featuring English industrial songs by A. L. Lloyd and others. My favorite type of work songs are the ones that actually describe the type of work done, like "Celebrated Working Man" and "Colliers' Rant" do for mining, "Click Go the Shears" and "The Shear at Castlereagh" for sheep shearing, the 60 zillion versions of "The Sailor's Alphabet" or "The Logger's Alphabet" do for their professions, etc. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Bearitone Date: 16 Oct 97 - 07:21 PM Does "The man who waters the workers' beer" count as aunion song? My old acappella group did a version of WCH (white collar holler) that we adapted from the recording by Oak Ash & Thorn. I should bring it out for my new group, come to think of it - we're all computer types, one way or another Thanks for the idea! P.S. I'm new here. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Barry Date: 16 Oct 97 - 11:34 PM LaMarca, Yes, it's fairly close, The Idle Wielder & $ Loom Weaver. Barry |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Barry Date: 16 Oct 97 - 11:35 PM LaMarca, It's fairly close, The Idle Wielder & $ Loom Weaver. Sorry, I should say there are similarites but not the same. Barry |
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE REQUEST OF THE POOR^^ From: judy Date: 23 Oct 97 - 02:33 AM Here's one I learned off a record called "Staverton Bridge" about being out of work. Although being old (sixpence a day for wages) it rings a bell about how poor people on welfare are regarded and how minumum wage just doesn't make it. My son figured out how much a person would make on minimum wage and before we had finished taking out rent, food and car costs, the amount was in the negative numbers. . The Request of the Poor Ye gentlemen of England wherever you be I pray give attention and listen unto me Relieve the poor in time of distress For they stand in great need and the lord will you bless Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh The times are so hard and you very well do know Thousands of men have no work for to do If they go to the parish to ask for relief They're disdained as a beggar, looked on as a thief Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh If we are young and single the officers say You may work on the roads for sixpence a day Sixpence a day! It is shocking to hear It will not find us food, for provisions are so dear Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh We must pray to the graziers to afford us relief To reduce the high prices of mutton and beef I don't know the reason why meat is so dear So little is consumed by those that are poor Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh Our little master tradesmen, their trade is so bad With rents, rates and taxes, it drives them half mad They feel the oppression of these times I am sure And the bailiff they scarcely can keep from the door Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh There's such pinchin' and gripin' amongst great and small But pinch in the belly's the worst pinch of all I had t'other day these few lines from a friend But I hope in my heart that these bad times will mend Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: rechal Date: 23 Oct 97 - 01:43 PM Practically any song by Hazel Dickens would qualify: Working Girl Blues for one, and another one whose refrain goes, "They'll never kick (git?) that union out of me" |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Pete M Date: 25 Oct 97 - 03:50 AM One song which I find helps to counteract the continuous propaganda in favour of the "free market" that we are constantly subjected to is The Jute mill Song wriiten by Mary Brookbank about her own experience and set to music by Ewan MacColl. (It 's in the database) On a separate tack, there used to be a folk group based in Devon called Staverton Bridge - any connection to the recording you mention Judy? |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Jerry Friedman, jfriedman@nnm.cc.nm.us Date: 25 Oct 97 - 03:57 PM This seems like another good time to ask for the lyrics to "Wry Man", a Newfoundland song about the miseries of being a fisherman. When I was a tourist in the Maritimes I heard out-of-fish songs so much that I was tempted to write a parody:
Who killed the cod? but at this point the song got too personal. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: judy Date: 25 Oct 97 - 11:07 PM Pete, Okay, okay, I'll get off my pitutee and find the record so I can give people the origins of there songs. Yes the group Staverton Bridge was/is from Devon. The liner notes (SAYDISC SDL266) say "The Request of the Poor" is a "broadside of the 19th century, fairly typical of its type., It as sold mainly in Sussex and a few neighbouring counties." It's a great record, I recommend it. judy
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca Date: 26 Oct 97 - 04:22 PM Well, I doubt if it was the inshore fisherman who got the majority of the fish, but the point is well taken even though Ottawa did have a great deal to do with it. Perhaps though all the millionaires who oppose the seal hunt will do something to assist in finding new employment for those put out of work, to prevent another series of angry songs. The computer song might be White Collar Holler, which is on Stan Roger's "Between The Breaks Live". I've always liked it because it was one of the few songs about us white-collar workers, who can be just as oppressed as any blue collar worker and less likely to be unionized. (The Dilbert cartoon which appeared in today's Sunday funnies is not at all far from the truth, trust me.) I believe that the title of the other song is "Tiny Fish For Japan", not "Tiny Fishes", and it is on From Fresh Water. BTW, the Erie fishermen seem to be doing OK, and are selling perch to Europeans, who apparently don't know much about Lake Erie. From Fresh Water also includes a song about a boy playing in the Junior A and attempting to make the NHL, but I suppose that that is the kind of work song only Canadians would care about. Make And Break Harbour is a good song along the lines of no work for fishermen. Hard Times Of Old England, and Cropper Lads may be found on Roy Harris's old Topic LP, Champions of Folly, which I recently dug out to post a song here. There is also The Top Guard and the Afterman, about the sad lot of sailors. He has another LP, From Sandbank Fields, which contains some old work songs. No idea if these are released on CD but they are not in Topic's current catalogue. Bob Dylan had that song too about the mines closing --- can't recall the words or title. Something about a miner's wife. Rodney Brown, from Northern Ontario, had a good album in the 1970's called The Freedom In Me which had some great songs along these lines, written by himself, including a fine one about a miner having to move to Toronto that I wish someone would cover. However it is so obscure a release that it would be by the greatest luck you'd ever find a copy. I've always liked Look For The Union Label, but no-one seems to sing it any more. They always sing that infernal Solidarity Forever, which I could never abide.
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca Date: 26 Oct 97 - 04:28 PM Sorry, I always manage to type things in wrong and miss the error. The song is The Top Man and the After Guard. The other album is "By", not "From" Sandbank Fields. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Nonie Rider Date: 27 Oct 97 - 03:59 PM Out-of-work songs: Stan Roger's "The Rawdon Hills (Once Were Touched by Gold)"
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE FINAL TRAWL^^^ From: Jon W. Date: 27 Oct 97 - 06:53 PM The songs about the fishing industry reminded me of this one:
THE FINAL TRAWL |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca Date: 27 Oct 97 - 08:34 PM Speaking of Archie Fisher, there's Yonder Banks/The Shipyard Apprentice off of Sunsets I've Galloped Into. (He wrote neither of those songs, which he sings as a medley) |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca Date: 27 Oct 97 - 09:02 PM How could I forget "Remember the Miner", and "Workin' Man". |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: GaryD Date: 27 Oct 97 - 09:24 PM Wow, I've not been back here for a while, due to other commitments..You all have given me a lot of food for thought..I Don't know why, but I've always had a fondness for mining songs..one of my Favorites is "Coal Town Road" I heard sung by Billy Ed Wheeler? Don't know much about him..but verses like " When I die, I'll go to heaven, the land of my dreams, I won't have to worry about losin' my job..to bad times or big machines..." Really get to me, as I see automation still running rampant & kicking people out of even higher levels of work (present automation becoming synonomous with computers, these wonderful machines we love)...In fact in one of my own jobs, I helped computerize the system that replaced me!.. Also, just a piece of a mining song goes through my mind..not sure what it is..but seems like Seeger & Weavers sang it..the harmony was fantastic.."Union Miners stand together, let no..??????....Keep your eye on the dollar, & your eye upon the scale!" I'd love the words to that one, as I remember the melody..anyone know it? Also what is the reference to eye on the scale..Weight or Wages? or?... |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Barry Date: 27 Oct 97 - 09:43 PM Gary, see Miner's Lifeguard in the DT, also see Life's Railway To Heaven, all taken from the song Life Is Like A Mountain Railway Barry |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Pete M Date: 28 Oct 97 - 05:28 AM Talking of Archie Fisher reminded me of hearing Ray Fisher sining "The Fairfield Apprentice", another song about living and working in the now closed down Clyde shipyards, I don't know if its ever been issued on a commercial recording though. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: dick greenhaus Date: 28 Oct 97 - 03:32 PM Gary D- The Coal Town Road you mention is called Coal Tattoo, and is in the database. There's also one CALLED Coaltown Road, from Cape Breton that's there too. As is Miner's Lifeguard. Try searching for phrases, not titles. And, if you get a chance, read Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut on the subject of automating yoursdself out of a job. Also a song (in the database) called Keep That Wheel A-Turning. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca Date: 30 Oct 97 - 10:30 PM Speaking of Archie Fisher, there's Men O' Worth about the rig workers, on "Will Ye Gang, Love". And speaking of rig workers, there is The Rig Worker's Alphabet, on" Wave Over Wave" by Fergus O'Byrne and Jim Payne. It's a take on the well-known Sailor's Alphabet, or The Lumberjack's Alphabet. The latter CD also includes several sea shanties (labour songs indeed) and one called "Cape Breton Silver", a jolly and lively tune which extolls the efforts of moonshiners on that island, asking all honest Cape Bretoners to "support the home industry". And as I mentioned elsewhere, there is Double Sledder Lad, about toilers in the forest. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Jerry Friedman Date: 31 Oct 97 - 06:22 PM My favorite of the few I know is "John Henry". Was he right to give his life for his workman's pride, or wrong to give it for the boss who (may have) exploited him? |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: John Nolan Date: 31 Oct 97 - 06:29 PM A couple of my favorite songs, both happily in the database, are "Keep That Wheel A-Turning," which Hamish Imlach did so well, and Si Kahn's "Go To Work On Monday One More Time". In both cases, the central figure loses his job, but for two different reasons. |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: GaryD Date: 31 Oct 97 - 10:50 PM Thanks, All!..This is turning out to be a fascinating thread..I'll be taking your suggestions to look up those references...Getting back to something mentioned earlier, I really like the idea of modern day work songs, like the White Collar Holler (though I'm sure I'd be fired for singing it at my job)..Had an interesting thought...How about A CHALLENGE!!!! I'm sure you creative types could come up with some home brew songs about some modern job..perhaps give us a familiar melody or song we can use for singing it..What do you say?..Wanna Try?..Maybe we can use this forum for releasing some of our own pent up abilities! |
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Subject: RE: Work Songs & Labor Movement From: Bert Date: 31 Oct 97 - 11:52 PM Does anyone have the words to William Morris's March of the workers? I know some of it but am missing a verse or two. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE HAND-LOOM WEAVERS' LAMENT^^ From: Moira Cameron Date: 02 Nov 97 - 03:57 AM For a more humourous song about the working class, look up "They're moving father's grave" on the data base (I know it as British Workman's Grave.) A more recent song, but one everyone can relate to I'm sure is "On a Monday Morning" by Cyril Tawney. One I couldn't find in the data base is "Tyrants of England" (it may actually go by another title.) I learned it off of an early Ian Robb album. I don't know if I can remember all of the lyrics. TYRANTS OF ENGLAND You gentlemen and tradesmen who ride about at will, Look down on these poor people; it's enoght to make you krill. Look down on these poor people, as you ride up and down-- I think there is a God above Who'll pull your pride right down. CH>You tyrants of England! Your race may soon be run; You may be brought into account For what you've sorely done. Oh you pull down our wages, shamefully to tell; You go into the market and you say we cannot sell. And when that we do ask you when these bad times may mend, You quickly give an answer, "When the wars are at an end." When we look on our poor children, it grieves are hearts full sore. They're clothing it is torn to rags, and we can get no more. With little in they're bellies, they to their work must go While yours do look as manky as monkeys in a show. With the choicest of fine dainties, your tables overspread; With good ale and strong brandy, you make your faces red. You invite a set of visitors; it is your chief delight To put your heads together for to make our faces white. You go to church on Sunday, but I think it's naught but pride. There can be no religion when humanity's thrown aside. If there be a God in heaven, as there is in the exchange, Our poor souls must not roam near there; like lost sheep they must range. You say that Boneparte is the cause of all And that we should all have cause to pray for his downfall. Well, Boneparte's dead and gone, and it is plainly shown That we have bigger tyrants than Boney's of our own. And so me lads, for to conclude, and for to make an end, Let's put our heads together so that these bad times may mend. So give us our old prices, as we have had before; And we will live in happiness and rub out the old score. There. I hope I remembered it all. HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone, 27-Jul-01. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: WORK SONG^^ From: dwditty Date: 02 Nov 97 - 03:45 PM Oscar Brown, Jr. put words to a Nat Adderly (I know, this is supposed to be folk/blues not jazz)tune called Work Song - it seems too appropriate to leave out because of some class attitude.
Breakin' up big rocks on the chain gang |
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