Songs for International Womens Day March 8

Subject: for International Womens Day
From: hilda fish
Date: 10 Mar 05 - 06:58 PM

This is a song I've written for the march tomorrow for anyone who wants to use it. It's to the tune of Dona Dona Dona Dona (on a wa-gon bou-nd for mar-ket etc. etc.) It seems to work very well. Does anyone still sing "Bread and Roses" and "Don't Give Up The Fight Girls"?

WOMENS SONG (for International Women's Day March)

On a street in every city
There are woman marching today
Life at work might be shitty
But women will fight to have their say

Hear the women's laughter
Hear the songs of their fights
They've laughed and loved their whole lives through
And now they march for their rights

CH; Sista sista sista sista
        Sista Sista sista look up
        sista sista sista sista
        sista sista sista look up

Keep up the struggle say the women
Don't let anyone put you down
Be very brave and stand united
We can turn the world around

Women too are human beings
Who need their freedom and their rights
As with people the whole world over
We struggle with all our might

CH; Sista sista sista sista
        Sista Sista sista look up
        sista sista sista sista
        sista sista sista look up

So many rights now are ours
And so many more must come
This is why we march together
We are many not just one

So hear the women laughing
Support their demand for their rights
March along with your all your sisters
For freedom is everyone's fight

CH; Sista sista sista sista
        Sista Sista sista look up
        sista sista sista sista
        sista sista sista look up

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 05:44 AM

Well done! Thanks so much for sharing and Good Marching to you!

kat

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: Cats
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 01:34 PM

Yes, I still sing Bread and Roses. On Womens Day I was representing my Trade Union, NASUWT, at the Womens TUC Conference in Scarborough. Can't think of a better place to have been to celebrate it!

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 02:18 PM

Amnesty

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: Rasener
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 02:42 PM

On a street in every city
There are men farting today
Life at work might be shitty
But men will fight to have their say

Hear the men's laughter
Hear the songs of their fights
They've laughed and loved their whole lives through
And now they march for their rights

CH; Brotha Brotha Brotha Brotha
       Brotha Brotha Brotha look up
       Brotha Brotha Brotha Brotha
       Brotha Brotha Brotha look up

Keep up the struggle say the men
Don't let anyone put you down
Be very brave and stand united
We can turn the world around

Men too are human beings
Who need their freedom and their rights
As with people the whole world over
We struggle with all our might

CH; Brotha Brotha Brotha Brotha
       Brotha Brotha Brotha look up
       Brotha Brotha Brotha Brotha
       Brotha Brotha Brotha look up

So many rights now are ours
And so many more must come
This is why we march together
We are manly not just one

So hear the women laughing
Support their demand for their rights
March along with your all your sisters
For freedom is everyone's fight

CH; Brotha Brotha Brotha Brotha
       Brotha Brotha Brotha look up
       Brotha Brotha Brotha Brotha
       Brotha Brotha Brotha look up

he he coudn't resist that. :-)
Brothers are doing it for themselves :-)

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: hilda fish
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 06:38 PM

"For freedom is everyone's fight" is the last line of the song. Attended a conf last year in Brussels where women from the Sudan, Tunisia and Darfour told me of the murders and rapes they went through - while their fathers sons brothers etc. had been murdered they suffered that and as well the living death of rape and humiliation as women and once arriving in Europe as 'non papiers' they suffered further rape and forced into prostitution etc.- while often supporting elderly mothers and their young children. In my country my people, particularly my sistas are suffering that and worse - imprisonment increased by 400% since 1998 and over 60% of our young women, those between 12-17 are in institutions. Jobs aren't hard to get, they are impossible as is education, housing, basic health care and food. Go brothers - do it for yourselves. I'm right behind that but your sistas need your support because they are dying on this globe at a far greater rate than men and they are living in terror - and it is being done by fearsome oppressors. I send you this with a grin :-) because that is the way we do it in the 'civilised' world isn't it? Apologies for being so serious but it is for me. Don't have any sense of humour about what is happening to my sistas. On another tack - do you know that in most circumstances when I try and bring up rape of women as a discussion, men say 'what about all the men who are raped, eh?" Åh, we'll all get there my brother!

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 09:21 PM

good song, Hilda!

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Mar 05 - 09:42 PM

Very good song!

Subject: Lyr Add: BREAD AND ROSES (James Oppenheim)
From: JennyO
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 12:32 AM

Does anyone still sing "Bread and Roses" and "Don't Give Up The Fight Girls"?

Hilda, I expect you probably would have seen the Solidarity Choir performing. Well both of those songs are in our repertoire, and we sing particularly "Bread and Roses" quite often.

The Solidarity Choir website has the words that we sing, as well as some background:

Bread and Roses

Words: James Oppenheim, 1912
Melody: Mimi Fariña 1976
Arranged: Tom Bridges 1994

Throughout the history of the textile industry women have been employed for very low wages. In 1912 during a massive strike in Lawrence Massachusetts a woman mill-worker carried a placard which read We Want Bread! And Roses Too!! The strike not only won important concessions from the wool companies, it also inspired James Oppenheim to write the poem Bread And Roses. Various tunes have been used over the years to sing the work, we use one by Mimi Fariña, as arranged by Tom Bridges.

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts grey
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses.
For the people here are singing 'Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!'

As we come marching, marching we battle too for men
For they are in the struggle and together we shall win!
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread, but give us roses!

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew
Yes, it is bread that we fight for, but we fight for roses too!

As we come marching, marching we're standing proud and tall!
The rising of the women means the rising of us all.
No more the drudge and idler - ten that toil where one reposes -
But a sharing of life's glories! 'Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

We are going to see Frankie Armstrong tonight at Almost Acoustic, and she may sing it. I hope she sings her song "Message from Mother Earth" too.

Jenny

Subject: RE: for International Womens Day
From: Azizi
Date: 12 Mar 05 - 03:35 AM

Hilda Fish,

Thank you for sharing your song. I wish I could hear it sung by you and by other sisters throughout the world.

Thank you also for your Mar 05 - 06:38 PM post. It reminds us all that woman are talkin 'bout serious business- not frivolities like the right of women to cut & dye their hair if they want to [though that made up example may be real somewhere and if real is symptomatic of women's lack of kuchijaculia
{KiSwahili for 'self-dertermination'}

In the spirit of sisterhood and peoplehood, I'd like to share two African American poems written by poet/author/playwright/essayist Langston Hughes, who truly made his mother proud..

MOTHER TO SON *
Well son, I'll tell you.
Life for me ain
t been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up;
And palces with no carpet on the floor-
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' laandin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin'in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
"Cause you finds it kinder hard.
Don't you fall now-
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin'
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

* this should also be "MOTHER TO DAUGHTER"
****

QUESTION AND ANSWER
Durban, Birmingham,
Cape Town, Atlanta,
Johannesburg, Watts,
The eart around
Struggling, fighting
Dying - for what?

A world to gain.

Groping, hoping,
Waiting - for what?

A world to gain,

Dreams kicked asunder,
Why not go under?

There's a world to gain.

But suppose I don't want it,
Why take it?

To remake it.
****
And everybody shouted
Harambee! Harambee! Harambee!!!! *

KiSwahili for "All pull together".