refugee and immigration songs

Subject: refugee and immigration songs
From: ifor
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 02:36 PM

I am looking out for songs by and about refugees and immigration in the folk tradition.Deportees by Woody Guthrie is an immense song and there must be others out there.Any thoughts?
Ifor

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 02:43 PM

Caledonia   Dougie McClean
Farewell Indiana    Andy Mitchell
There are many Scots songs of immigration and Irish, it is by way of a national pastime.
Giok

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 02:47 PM

"Deportees" by Cisco Houston is a personal favourite

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 03:52 PM

Last post was not what I intended to post.
Am having connection problems I will clarify once sorted

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 04:09 PM

I always found the song Across The Western Ocean one of the best songs about immigration.
Here is a link to the DT version. @displaysong.cfm?SongID=128

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 04:17 PM

"Gone to America" on Steeleye Span's Sails of Silver is probably trad. origin.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 04:27 PM

Problem now appears resolved.
I intended to say that I have a great personal regard for Cisco Houston's version of the Guthrie/Hoffman classic before askinif you had a particular country/period of history in mind?

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 05:38 PM

Dear Purple Foxx
Yes I have got a particular country and period in mind.I am thinking of now in modern Britain.The film Dirty Pretty Things was a brilliant account of illegal migrant workers living on the margins of Blair's Britain...hounded by the press and the long arm of the govt but needed to do all the filthy and low paid work few others want.Are there any songs in the folk tradition covering this .Just think of the cockle pickers who dies in Morecombe Bay.Where are the songs to remember them in the same way that Woody wrote Deportees?
Ifor

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Scotus
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 05:44 PM

Guest - you have touched on a very important subject!

I will watch this thread with interest.

Jack

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 05:48 PM

There are songs about the original 'navvies' i.e. navigators, mostly Irish immigrants who woked on the digging of the English canals and were paid a pittance in company money called 'Tommy notes' which could only be redeemed at company run stores.
A few 'Bothy Ballads' about farm servants being paid little or no money by greedy farmers, many of them were immigrants.
Then there's 'Pity the Poor Immigrant'.
Giok

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 01:30 PM

IMMIGRATION MAN
by Graham Nash

Source: www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/immigrat.htm

There I was at the immigration scene
Shining and feeling clean, could it be a sin
I got stopped by the immigration man
He says he doesn't know if he can let me in

/ D - C - / D9 - Bb - / :

{Refrain}
Let me in, immigration man
Can I cross the line and pray
I can stay another day
Let me in, immigration man
I won't toe your line today
I can't see it anyway, hey-y

/ D - C - / D9 - / Bb - / 1st, 2nd / Bb - D - /

There he was with his immigration face
Giving me a paper chase, but the sun was coming
'Cause all at once he looked into my space
And stamped a number over my face and he sent me running

Won't you
{Refrain}

Here I am with my immigration form
It's big enough to keep me warm when a cold wind's coming
So go where you will as long as you think you can
You'd better watch out, watch out for the man anywhere you're going

{As refrain}
Come on and let me in, immigration man
Can I cross the line and pray
Take your fingers from the tray
Let me in, irritation man
I won't toe your line today
I can't see it anyway

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 01:46 PM

Great stuff Elmer.
Have been on the look out but sadly nothing as yet.

Subject: Lyr Add: PASTURES OF PLENTY (Woody Guthrie)
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 09:27 PM

Guthrie's Pastures Of Plenty is an excellent song on this subject. It uses the same tune as the Appalachian murder ballad Pretty Polly.

PASTURES OF PLENTY
(Woody Guthrie)

It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road
Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled
And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold

I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city, you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

California, Arizona, I harvest your crops
Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine

Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in the Union us migrants have been
We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win

It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if need be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free

Copyright Ludlow Music, Inc.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,J C
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 04:39 AM

Rambler From Clare, Tunnel Tigers, New Rocks of Bawn, Farewell To Ireland - MacColl
Hello Friend - Peggy Seeger
Exploration - Gordon McCulloch


to name a few

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: yrlancslad
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 03:04 PM

Not about illegal immigrants but about an English emmigration to Australia and the difficulties of returning "home", I think "The Exile", by the late Alan Burbidge is a great song although when I sing it I change the last verse a little,specifically the two lines beginning, "And it gives you such a fright....." to "And the streets are full of drunkards, the litter lies in heaps,And the lager louts and Thatchers lot have put the land to sack".
I got the song from Alans widow at Whitby Week a couple of years ago when I was looking for songs a little different from the usual Irish and Scottish songsfor an immigration gig.Ive lost her address but you can get the Alan Burbidge Song Book from Tom Brown, Daylight Press,Trafalger House,Castle Sheet, Coombe Martin, North Devon,EX340JD

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: rich-joy
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 08:30 PM

not the English situation specifically, but being modern Australia, definitely related :

" REFUGEE

This song took a while to eventuate. I was compelled to write it out of disgust at our current government's hypocrisy and racist attitudes towards people's who have suffered so much in their own homelands and have travelled across our northern waters in unseaworthy boats in the hope for a new future for themselves and their families. The fact that Australia sends troops to Afghanistan and Iraq because the local citizens need help and protection and we imprison their refugee's who come from there is utter hypocrisy.

John Howard and his liberal party counterparts should be forever condemned for using the plight of these people's lives to further their own political ends. The lies about queue jumping and children overboard, the imprisonment of children and the torture many of these refugee's have been subjected to, deserve condemnation - for now, and into the future.


I come from the land of the desert
Where the mountains reach into the sky
Where snow caps god's towers of beauty
Religion and guns ruled my life

A life of simplicity and sharing
Three children, a wife, family
I've been beaten, plundered and brutalised
I am a refugee

Now with decades of war my hopes faded
And with a yearning to live and be free
I packaged my life and my culture
With a bag full of sad memories

I've been exiled away from my homeland
I've been feeding advantage and greed
I have ventured 'cross nature's vast oceans
I am a refugee

Now a light shines down from a tower
Curled wire defines all my dreams
And a man with a baton and a spray pack
Maintains all those hostilities

As I sit in this camp in the desert
With no mountains, water and trees
My spirit is broken and shattered
I am a refugee

As I sit in this camp in the desert
Curled wire defines all my dreams
My life is dissected and traded
I am a refugee

And my hopes blow away 'cross the desert
Like an aborigine

Noel Gardner copyright
Corrugated Music "


found at Noel's website : http://www.noelgardner.com/lyrics/refugee.html


Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 11:11 AM

Here's a tougher question. List all the Irish songs which AREN'T about immigration!

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 04:33 PM

I once performed a program for a local library on Songs of the Irish Emigration - as you can imagine, I had no difficulty filling up a 45 minute set. "The Green Shores of Fogo," "By the Hush," "Kilkelley," and "The State of Arkansas" are just a few that spring to mind.

I also led a Getaway workshop on Immigrants and Emigrants, which took it beyond the Irish. One song that I love is Tish Hinojosa's "Donde Voy" ("Where Do I Go"). If you have the ability to sing in Spanish, that's one I highly recommend. Indeed, much of her work deals with immigration issues, especially on her "Homeland" album.

Si Kahn has also written beautiful songs on the subject - particularly relating to his own Jewish heritage and his grandfather's escape from Russia. His "Crossing the Border" is haunting.

Then, of course, there are all the songs about the involuntary immigrants to the Americas - the slaves. "the Flying Cloud" is one of the most powerful broadside ballads I know, and more recently Cindy Kallet has created a tear-jerking story with her "Juliana" (which she sings with "Shallow Brown").

Good luck!

Dan Schatz

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 04:37 PM

Page 53 of the Frank/Anne Warner "Traditional American Folk Songs" has "Plains of Baltimore", about emigration from Ireland.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: stallion
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:20 PM

I particularly liked Jan Christensens "The Ghost Of Ellis island", we heard him sing it at a South Street Chanty sing (NYC), it's a great song, I don't know if he has recorded it yet. I think Pete Seeger sang it when the Ellis island refurb. was opened.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: number 6
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 07:19 PM

Paddy's Lament

and Acadian Driftwood (just had to post an exerpt from this song)

Fifteen under zero when the day became a threat
My clothes were wet and I was drenched to the bone
Been out ice fishing, too much repetition
Make a man wanna leave the only home he's known
Sailing out of the gulf headin' for saint pierre
Nothin' to declare
All we had was gone
Broke down along the coast
But what hurt the most
When the people there said
You better keep movin' on

Everlasting summer filled with ill-content
This government had us walkin' in chains
This isn't my turf
This ain't my season
Can't think of one good reason to remain
I've worked in the sugar fields up from new orleans
It was ever green up until the floods
You could call it an omen
Points ya where you're goin'
Set my compass north
I got winter in my blood

Acadian driftwood
Gypsy tail wind
They call my home the land of snow
Canadian cold front movin' in
What a way to ride
Ah, what a way to go




sIx

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Maryrrf
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:32 PM

I seem to recall a Mudcatter posting lyrics he had written about the immigrants in Britain who were drowned gathering cockles, but can't remember who it was. Mudcatter InObu has written many songs about the (recent) immigrant experience in the US including Amadou Diallo.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: goodbar
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:44 PM

'thousands are sailing' by the pogues

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 01:15 AM

Immigrant Eyes, by Guy Clark.
Great Song.

Seamus

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Bert
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 02:05 AM

Can't think of many immigrant songs, Filli-me-oor-i-ay or Paddy works on the Railway is about all I can think of offhand.

Now for emigrant songs there's Noreen Bawn and Dear Old Shannon Shore and probaly loads more if I were to think about it.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,Faith
Date: 23 Sep 16 - 09:25 PM

The most powerful one is one I have known since the 60s, I think was a Julie Felix song of WH Auden's poem, sometimes known as Refugee blues.   I have been looking for the version I sang, but cannot find it atm.   
It is really powerful, written just before WW2 about the plight of Jews in Europe.   Each verse has 3 lines, and the tune covers 2 verses, with the second one being higher, and plaintive.   
The version I knew changed Auden's words a little to give it more rhythm.   I particularly liked this verse -
"Walked into the forest, there were birds upon the trees,
They had no politicians so they sang at their ease,
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race."

I have sung it recently acappella to two young audiences, who were very moved!

Subject: LYR ADD - Refugee Blues by WH Auden
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 03:09 AM

Refugee Blues by WH Auden

   
        
                          


        
                                
        

CONTENTS
Introduction
the first world war
the 1930s
the second world war
crimes against humanity
Refugee Blues
Bread and a Pension GO
Dispossessed GO
After the War GO
the nuclear age
other wars
responsibility
women's voices








                

Refugee Blues by W H Auden

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said:
'If you've got no passport, you're officially dead';
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go today, my dear, but where shall we go today?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:
'If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread';
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying: 'They must die';
We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors;
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                
Refugee Blues From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Refugee Blues" is a poem by W. H. Auden, written in 1939, one of a number of poems Auden wrote in the mid- to late-1930s in blues and other popular metres, for example the meter he used in his love poem "Calypso," written around the same time. The poem dramatizes the condition of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in the years before World War II, especially the indifference and antagonism they faced when seeking asylum in the democracies of the period.[1] In some later editions of Auden's poetry, the poem is not identified by name but is the first of ten poems grouped together in "Ten Songs," which also includes the above-mentioned "Calypso."

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 03:12 AM

HELLO FRIEND                                       
Words & music by PEGGY SEEGER

1   Hello friend, I see you're a stranger - where do you come from?
Hello friend, something in your face reminds me of the sun -
But the northern light is thin against the darkness of your skin,
Hello, friend; I'm glad that you could come.

2   When you talk, I hear the echo of the places you have been,
When you walk, colours all around you fluttering in the wind –
When I listen to your song, I feel you really do belong;
Am I the stranger, the one who's just come in?

3   I think I know what made you come here, but what makes you want to stay?
Will you go if the weather and the welcome seem too cold and grey?
Do you feel you'll never find all the warmth you left behind? Never mind –
I hope you want to stay.

4   Did you find new friends to help you? Can you earn a living here?
Do you mind the smoke and grime around you and the warning loud and clear?
Or did your troubles just begin with the colour of your skin?
Never mind -I'm glad to see you here!

5   Did you come to climb a mountain and end up in a hole?
Have you won the right to join our people signing on the dole?
Can you be happy here amid suspicion and the fear,
Or will you run, and never more return?

6   Hello friend, all of us are strangers in this green and pleasant land,
Once again - battle ranks are forming and we need a brother's hand;
Yours' the fear and ours the shame, but our goal is just the same,
In the end this will be our native land.

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 05:38 AM

Steven Clark's song "Coming Home".
And the Proclaimers' song "Scotland's Story".
Will post links and/or lyrics later if they are not already in the DT.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Felipa
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 07:19 AM

Oleanna (in the Digital Tradition on Mudcat)
When First Unto This Country (two versions in DT)
The Ghosts of Ellis Island(Jan P. Christensen)
By the Hush (Paddy's Lamentation)
Kilkelly ((Peter Jones)
John Chinaman My Joe(J.W. Conner - I didnt know of this song before; it is filed as "immigration" in DT)

Bisan (Arabic, in recent discussion thread started by Joe Offer)
An Phailistín (Treasa Ní Cheanabháin)

several Dust Bowl songs, esp.by Woody Guthrie - refugees in their own country

http://www.songlines.co.uk/world-music-news/2016/01/songs-of-the-syrian-refugees/ page includes English language lyrics of "The Camel Shepherd", and soundcloud link to that song. also English language verse of "Saed" by Fatima Al Hariri. And the article is worth reading.

"All of our songs are about the longing and the nostalgia to our country. Every single one of us has lost someone, or someone they know has been arrested."
- Mohamad Isa Almaziodi (Vocalist) http://www.refugeemusicproject.com/ (not so much different from older Irish songs!)

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 09:28 AM

LAMPADUSA by Ewan McLennan

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 09:45 AM

From Ewan's website:

Ewan had this to say about the single:

"
For years I've sung traditional songs of emigration, thinking them some of the most powerful ballads I've ever come across. These songs – whether Scottish, Irish or English – tell the tales of times when life was so hard people were forced to leave their homes and families in search of a better place, a tolerable place. Very often the protagonist mourns the separation from the land of her birth and longs one day to return. The songs invariably deal with the subject of emigration with a deep sympathy and compassion.

It is with these songs still ringing in my ears that I've watched the migrant crisis unfold and intensify. Huge numbers of people have been landing precariously on the shores of Southern Europe. In the most part they have been escaping conditions in their home countries that have become perilous and unbearable.

With all this in mind I thought I would try and write a simple song that described the plight and the journey of a migrant today, hopefully with some of the sympathy and compassion of our own tales. Here is the
song I wrote, 'Lampedusa'.

I am releasing this track in conjunction with Doctors Without Borders, an incredible organisation rescuing migrants stranded in the Mediterranean. All the money raised from the download of this track will go to them.

Order the single via Bandcamp here: ewanmclennan.bandcamp.com

http://www.msf.org.uk/
www.ewanmclennan.co.uk

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 16 - 09:13 PM

Actually most of the songs tend to be about emigration rather than immigration.

It's the same thing, but looked at from an opposite direction. The direction that tends to be ignored by the natives.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Hrothgar
Date: 25 Sep 16 - 03:54 AM

Eric Bogle's "Shelter"

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 25 Sep 16 - 05:55 PM

Only For Three Months By Na Mara

LIsten to it Here

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Sep 16 - 07:02 PM

As promised: here is Steven Clark's song "Coming Home".
It won the Songwriting competition at Girvan Traditional Music Festival back in the first half of the 2000s: one of the judges was Ian Bruce who went on to record it as "Coming Hame", and the McCalmans also recorded it. It is sung by just about every community singing group and session singer in Scotland now, as well as being approved for use in Scottish secondary schools - see link below, where you can also hear Steven singing it.
Coming Home


COMING HOME                                Steven Clark
1. Put a light in the window,
Your brother's coming home,
Set a meal on the table,
Your brother's coming home,
He'll be tired and weary after all these years alone,
He's coming home, your brother's coming home.

2. Take the chain from the door,
Your sister's coming home,
Open wide your arms,
Your sister's coming home,
Don't leave her standing there after all the pain she's known,
She's coming home, your sister's coming home.
        
Chorus
Coming home to a place they've never been,
Coming home to a land they've never seen,
Coming home to a family they have never known,
All Jock Tamson's bairns ...are coming home.

3. He's been angry and afraid,
Your father's coming home,
He's been hounded and betrayed,
Your father's coming home,
And with every act of kindness a seed of hope is sown
He's coming home, your father's coming home.

4. Bring her in from the cold,
Your mother's coming home,
Sit her down by the fire,
Your mother's coming home,
Make her warm, make her welcome before the chance is gone,
She's coming home, your mother's coming home.        
        
Chorus        Coming home, etc


5.From Iraq and Zimbabwe,
Your family's coming home,
And from Turkey and Somalia,
Your family's coming home,
Seeking rest and refuge they have never known        
They're coming home, your family's coming home.

Chorus        Coming home, etc                
Rep last line – All Jock Tamson's bairns.....are coming home.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Sep 16 - 07:16 PM

And here now is The Proclaimers' song, "Scotland's Story" - alos recorded by the McCalmans and others.

SCOTLAND'S STORY                                The Proclaimers

Michael McGrory from west Donegal
You came to Glasgow with nothing at all
You fought the landlord then the Africa Corps
When you came to Glasgow with nothing at all

Abraham Caplan from Vilnius you came
You were heading for New York, but Leith's where you've stayed
You built a great business which benefits all
Since you came to this land with nothing at all

In Scotland's story I read that they came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
But so did the Irishman, Jew and Ukraine
They're all Scotland's story and they're all worth the same

Joseph Di Angelo dreams of the days
When Italian kids in the Grassmarket played
We burned out his shop when the boys went to war
But auld Joe's a big man and he forgave all

In Scotland's story I'm told that they came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
But where's all the Chinese and Indian names?
They're in my land's story and they're all worth the same

Christina McKay, I learned of your name
How you travelled south from Delny one day
You raised a whole family in one room they say
And the X on the line stands in place of your name

So in the old story I'll bet that I came
From Gael and Pict and Angle and Dane
And a poor migrant girl who could not write her name
It's a common old story, but it's mine just the same

All through the story the immigrants came
The Gael and the Pict, the Angle and Dane
From Pakistan, England and from the Ukraine
We're all Scotland's story and we're all worth the same
Your Scotland's story is worth just the same.

And the video link: Scotland's Story

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,DeanofRochester
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 02:42 AM

Amazed no-one has mentioned Liberty's Sweet Shore by John Doyle yet

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Sep 16 - 05:37 PM

Or Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10Pb2ia28QM

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: bubblyrat
Date: 27 Sep 16 - 04:53 AM

Welcome !Welcome! Emigrante,

to my country ,welcome home ;

Welcome ! Welcome ! emigrante ,

To the country that I love   

I am proud, I am proud, I am proud of my forefathers,

And I sing about their courage ;

They came across the sea , to a land they did not know,

The same way you do, my friends

So welcome! Welcome ! (etc . that is all I can remember ,sadly , but I think it is a song by Buffy Sainte Marie , if memory serves correct).

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: bradfordian
Date: 27 Sep 16 - 01:51 PM

Alun Parry's "I want Rosa to stay"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJQ4Gj1Cafg

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Thompson
Date: 30 Jul 18 - 04:48 AM

A stór mo chroí, when you're far away
From the house that you'll soon be leaving
Sure it's many a time by night and by day
That your heart will be sorely grieving
For the stranger's land may be bright and fair
And rich in its treasures golden
But you'll pine, I know, for the long ago
And the heart that is never olden.

A stór mo chroí, in the stranger's land
There's plenty of wealth, and of wailing
Though gems adorn the great and grand
There are faces with hunger pailing
The road may be weary, and hard to tread
And the lights of the city blind you
Oh turn, a stór, to Erin's green shore
And the ones you have left behind you.

A stór mo chroí, when the evening's mist
On mountain and meadow is falling
Oh turn, a stór, from the throng and list
And maybe you'll hear me calling
For the sound of a voice that you'll surely miss
For somebody's speedy returning
A rún, a rún, won't you come back soon
To the ones who truly love you?

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Jul 18 - 07:41 AM

When I first came to this land,
I was not a wealthy man.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Elmore
Date: 30 Jul 18 - 09:55 AM

Lady of the Harbor by Joe Jencks.

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Iains
Date: 30 Jul 18 - 10:42 AM

Flight of Earls
even Fields of Athenry

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Jul 18 - 11:04 AM

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: Maryrrf Date: 07 Mar 06 - 08:32 PM

I seem to recall a Mudcatter posting lyrics he had written about the immigrants in Britain who were drowned gathering cockles, but can't remember who it was. Mudcatter InObu has written many songs about the (recent) immigrant experience in the US including Amadou Diallo.

There are certainly two songs about the cockle pickers;

On Morecambe Bay
Written by Kevin Littlewood of Southport and recorded by Christy Moore

Out beyond the street lamps where the calliopes roar
Past the wrack and samphire, beyond the shore
I’ve seen them walking through the tide as rain cuts through the spray
Chinese cockle-pickers on the sands of Morecambe Bay

Morecambe Bay
Written by Maggie Holland as she passed by the sands on the train, to the tune of Moreton Bay

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 31 Jul 18 - 06:19 AM

There was mention above of Auden's Refugee Blues. Ted Slovik put a tune to it and put it up at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krubUqbYslc

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 04:55 AM

Click Link for Gerry's YouTube of Refugee Blues

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 09:36 AM

Refugee Migrant Song - Jack Warshaw

Subject: RE: refugee and immigration songs
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 10:12 AM

From earlier post by Kevin Littlewood, author of "On Morecombe Bay" ...

Here's the song; good luck with it.


ON MORECAMBE BAY

(I play this with a dropped 6th string. The switch from the A minor chord to the A major chord is something which I do in the song, but if it is too fiddly, you can just stay on the A minor I guess. Anything to keep it simple!)

Verse 1.
       Dm
Out beyond the street lamp's empire
Am             Amaj
And the calliope's roar,
Dm
Beyond the thrift, the wrack, the samphire,
Am               A maj
Where the sea betrays the shore,
Dm
I have seen them in the tide's wake,
Gm
As the rain cuts through the spray,
Dm
Figures on the edge of daybreak
       Am            A maj
Walking out on Morecambe Bay

chorus             Dm
       For the tide's the very devil,
               Gm
       It can run you out of breath,
               Dm
       It can race you on the level,
               Am                Amaj
       It can chase you to your death,
                Dm
       Yes the tide's the very devil
                Gm
       And the devil has his day
               Dm             Am      Amaj      Dm                     
       On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay

2. Here's the very life to die for,
Here's a life not as it seems,
Sleeping on a foreign floor
Five to a room no space for dreams.
Tempted by the urge to travel,
Strangers in a stranger land,
Now they dig in sand and gravel,
Plastic bags gripped in their hands.

chorus
       For the tide's the very devil,
       It can run you out of breath,
       It can race you on the level,
       It can chase you to your death,
       Yes the tide's the very devil
       And the devil has his day
       On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay

3. Letters home with money orders
See how much we earned today;
Tales of crossing Europe's borders,
So we came to Morecambe Bay;
This is where the cockles sleep
In their beds so soft and sound;
This is where our watch we keep
On these weary cockle grounds

chorus
       For the devil's in the tide's flood
       He'll be weighing down your shoes
       He'll be churning up the sea's mud
       This is one race he won't lose
       Yes the tide's the very devil
       And the devil has his day
       On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay


4. I have met them in the markets,
Brushed their arms in grocery queues,
I should have grabbed them by the jacket,
Should have told them what I knew;
Told them what my mother told me
As we paddled in the waves
Never try and race the tide
Across the sands of Morecambe Bay

chorus
       For the devil's in the tide's flood
       He'll be weighing down your shoes
       He'll be churning up the sea's mud
       This is one race he won't lose
       Yes the tide's the very devil
       And the devil has his day
       On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay

5. Now I see them in the distance
Laid out in the dawn's hard light,
Helpless in the sea's persistence,
Twenty-three drowned in one night.
Up above in skies so clear
Their phone calls half the world had crossed
'Between the rivers Kent and Keer
We have raced the tide and lost.'

chorus
       For the tide's the very devil,
       It can run you out of breath,
       It can race you on the level,
       It can chase you to your death,
       Yes the tide's the very devil
       And the devil has his day
       On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay

6. In Fujian, Xelang, Baihu,
Where they mourn their next of kin,
Where the men with snake tattoos,
Rack up the debts and call them in;
Parents stand, their arms flung wide
As their children drive away,
Heading out to race the tide
Across some foreign bay.

chorus
       For the tide's the very devil,
       It can run you out of breath,
       It can race you on the level,
       It can chase you to your death,
       Yes the tide's the very devil
       And the devil has his day
       On the weary cockle grounds of Morecambe Bay