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Lyr Req: We are the builders

11 Jun 06 - 09:46 PM (#1757620)
Subject: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: GUEST,2feathers

Song I learned many years ago - labor songs, probably THE great depression. Words ai remember are
We are the builders
We build the future
The Future world is in our hands
All power and (????) unto the workers
Is our (????) battle cry
And we the builders
Who build the future
We fight and do not care to die----???

Would like to know origin or source.

Thanks.


11 Jun 06 - 09:50 PM (#1757626)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Peace

"A few workers' theatres dallied with musicals. For instance, the Yugoslav Players did "We are the Builders," a play with music;[241]"

From

www.nvcc.edu/home/etrumbull/diss/ch3.htm


Maybe there?


11 Jun 06 - 10:15 PM (#1757652)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: GUEST,2feathers

Very interesting but L O N G article about the development of leftist theater groups during the depression. I've bookmarked it for going back to. I don't think I will find the acual lyrics in this source, however. Many references - if I had the time.....
Thank you for the reference.


11 Jun 06 - 10:19 PM (#1757657)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Peace

I have not found any lyrics. They sound like something from the USSR--let's build solidarity in the working class. Wonder if it might be a translation.


11 Jun 06 - 10:37 PM (#1757669)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: GUEST,2feathers

My own memory is so short these days. The last line I remember is, " we fight and do not FEAR to die" Sounds very militant. I seem to remember a chorus singing it. Melody is very simple. Sol-do-re-mi-mi (repeat), sol-do-re-mi-sol fa mi, sol-sol-sol -ti-ti (repeat) sol-sol-sol-ti-la-fa-mi-do. Wouldn't win any prizes. I never know why old songs pop into my head.
Your suggestion of origin is interesting. If the song fades out of my head, well, that happens as often as they come in.
I am going to be 82 soon. I don't think senior dementia is on me, but who knows?


11 Jun 06 - 11:09 PM (#1757685)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Peace

2feathers: I am finding ziltch.


12 Jun 06 - 03:59 PM (#1758277)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: open mike

this sounds like something that john muccutcheon sings..
about the workers who built the sydney australia opera house.

his web site is www.folkmusic.com


12 Jun 06 - 04:33 PM (#1758299)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Sorcha

Bob the Builder?


13 Jun 06 - 01:34 AM (#1758625)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Bob Bolton

G'day open mike,

I wasn't there (nearly moved to foundation stressing work on Opera House ... but left that firm and headed elsewhere ...) but it may be that the John McCutcheon song is related to the famous occasion of Paul Robeson singing to the opera House workers in the unfinished space of the Concert Hall.

(If I wasn't trying to look hard at work ... I might have time to pursue the history of that one ...)

Regard(les)s,

Bob


14 Jun 06 - 12:04 AM (#1759473)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Bob Bolton

G'day again, open mike (et al,

Well, a quick search (lunchtime ... ) yeilds this:

"He was the first internationally renowned singer to perform at the Sydney Opera House — in 1960. He climbed onto the scaffolding and sang to the building workers during its construction. While in Australia he sang to thousands of other workers, including on the waterfront."

That makes it pretty early in the construction (5 or 6 years before I might have worked there - if I hadn't gone back to Tasmania). The site I picked this from didn't mention what he sang ... and I had better not check the other thousands of hits ... at lunchtime, anyway!

Regards,

Bob


14 Jun 06 - 12:31 AM (#1759476)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: ossonflags

Don't know if this helps but Ewan McCall wrote and sang a song called "We are the engineers" which is somewhat on the same lines


20 Jun 06 - 12:43 AM (#1764310)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Jim Dixon

This blog says Paul Robeson sang JOE HILL to the workers at the Sydney Opera House in 1960.

John McCutcheon's web site features a photo of "Paul Robeson, singing at the site of the Sydney Opera House in 1960" alongside the lyrics of JOE HILL, but there is no further explanation.


22 Jun 06 - 07:07 AM (#1766387)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We are the builders
From: Jim Dixon

Google Book Search comes through!

        From the Pioneers, we "graduated" to the Young Communist League (YCL) and then to the Communist Party. The Party led and controlled both youth organizations.
        In the Young Pioneers, we had lots of picnics and we sang songs. The first revolutionary song I ever learned went like this:

      We are the builders; we build the future.
      The future world is in our hands.
      We swing our hammers, we use our weapons
      Against the foe in every land.
      And we, the workers, who are the builders,
      We fight; we do not fear to die.

--From "California Girlhood" by Lillian Carlson, one of the articles in the book "Red Diapers: Growing up in the Communist Left", edited by Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro, published by University of Illinois Press, 1998.