Dust it off and give it a try.
My tastes in music vary widely. There are times when I love stupid music, like Quiet Riot or Kid Rock, other times when I want something sort of revolutionary. A lot of mid 80’s rap fills this need, specifically Public Enemy (for obvious reasons). Sometimes I want to spend an evening with Yo Yo Ma or Pavarotti, other times I want to listen to jazz—even Mexican ranchero music has a place in my library. The one that I love, the one that fills a need in me that none of the others quite fit, is old labor music.
This music tells a story. I don’t mean that each song tells a story, although they often do, but that the music itself is a soundtrack to struggles and strivings that we often gloss over in our history classes and in our consideration of their contribution to our lives. It’s easy for us to forget because the events they talk about, riots and strikes and long term struggles, aren’t sexy. These events aren’t directly tied to WWI or WWII. We don’t see it reflected in the faces of our grandparents or parents.
These songs were often used to try to rally the people on the picket line or to recruit more union members. Often they borrow the tunes of old hymns or ballads people already were very familiar with, be it the song “Solidarity Forever” borrowing the tune from “John Brown’s Body”, also known as “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, or “Union Maid” borrowing from the tune “Red Wing”, an old folk tune. It’s said that at one time it was popular for people to try to muffle a union protest by inviting the Salvation Army to sing at the location. This is the folk origin of the practice of changing songs, specifically hymns, into labor songs. Probably the most well known example is “Pie in the Sky” by Joe Hill, which is based on the tune “In the Sweet By and By”.
These songs are tunes that we can relish. Most people know the tunes to many of them, and we can all feel something of a resonance with them. We all like to identify with underdogs, right? Especially ones that accomplished some fairly lofty goals, flying in the face of power and saying with a loud voice filled with tunes and songs, filled with a defiant, “NO!”
If this interested you in labor music in general, feel free to do some exploring on your own. I would also recommend visiting the song section of the American Labor Studies Center website, located at http://www.labor-studies.org/laborsongs.php.
-Michael Drennan
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