Other American labor songs of the IWW
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum (Harry McClintock - 1897/1908)
Why don't you work like other folks do?
How the hell can I work when there's no work to do?
CHORUS:
Hallelujah, I'm a bum,
Hallelujah, bum again,
Hallelujah, give us a handout
To revive us again.
Oh, why don't you save all the money you earn?
If I didn't eat, I'd have money to burn.
Whenever I get all the money I earn,
The boss will be broke, and to work he must turn.
Oh, I like my boss, he's a good friend of mine,
That's why I am starving out on the breadline.
When springtime it comes, oh, won't we have fun;
We'll throw off our jobs, and go on the bum.
For the last line of verse one - How the hell can I work when the sky is so blue? Or: How can I get a job when you're holding down two?
I can't buy a job 'cause I ain't got the dough,
So I ride in a boxcar 'cause I'm a hobo.
I went to a bar and I asked for a drink,
They gave me a glass and they showed me the sink.
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Solidarity Forever (Ralph Chaplin - 1915) Click here for the music!
When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.
CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
It is we who plowed the praries; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong.
All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.
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The Red Flag (Jim Connel - 1889) Click here for the music!
The worker's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.
CHORUS:
Then raise the scarlet standard high!
Within its shade we'll live or die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
Look 'round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,
The sturdy German chants its praise,
In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung
Chicago swells the surging throng.
It waved above our infant might
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow:
We must not change its color now.
It suits today the meek and base,
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place,
To cringe beneath the rich man's frown,
And haul that sacred emblem down.
It well recalls the triumphs past;
It gives the hope of peace at last --
The banner bright, the symbol plain
Of human right and human gain.
With heads uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall.
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.
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Christians at War (John F. Kendrick - 1916)
Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty's way is plain;
Slay your Christian neighbors, or by them be slain,
Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,
God above is calling you to rob and rape and kill,
All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high;
If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Rip and tear and smite!
Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.
Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;
Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.
Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;
Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;
Rob with bloody fingers, Christ okays the bill,
Steal the farmers' savings, take their grain and meat;
Even though the children starve, the Savior's bums must eat,
Burn the peasants' cottages, orphans leave bereft;
In Jehovah's holy name, wreak ruin right and left.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;
Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.
Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;
Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.
File your bullets' noses flat, poison every well;
God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell.
Onward, Christian soldiers! Blight all that you meet;
Trample human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as tyrant's tools;
History will say of you: "That pack of Goddamn fools."
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Dump the Bosses off Your Back (John Brill - 1916)
Are you poor, forlorn and hungry?
Are there lots of things you lack?
Is your life made up of misery?
Then dump the bosses off your back.
Are your clothes all patched and tattered?
Are you living in a shack ?
Would you have your troubles scattered?
Then dump the bosses off your back.
Are you almost split asunder?
Loaded like a long-eared jack?
Boob - why don't you buck like thunder,
And dump the bosses off your back?
All the agonies you suffer
You can end with one good whack;
Stiffen up, you orn'ry duffer
And dump the bosses off your back.
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Background Information:
For years "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" was considered a folk song authored by no one in particular -- at least no one whose identity was known. However, Harry McClintock, an old Wobbly songleader who recorded the song in 1926, has made a good case for his authorship.
While hoboing on the open road in 1897 or 1898, bumming his meals or singing for his supper, McClintock says he put new words to "Revive Us Again," and called it "Hallelulia on the Bum."
"There were only two or three verses at first but new ones practically wrote themselves. The junglestiffs liked the song and so did the saloon audiences, most of whom had hit the road at one time or another, and the rolicking, devil-may-care lilt of the thing appealed to them."
During the Spanish American War, McClintock says, he sang the song in an army training camp in Tennessee, and the soldiers took it up, adding new verses. After the war they helped to spread the song around the country. By the late 1920s, more than a dozen publishers had turned out sheet music of the song. McClintock then charged them with infringement of copyright, and managed to establish his authorship legally.
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Sung to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Solidarity Forever" is the most popular union song on the North American continent. If a union member knows only one union song it is almost sure to be this. It has become, in effect, the anthem of the American labor movement.
Ralph Chaplin, the famous poet, artist, writer, and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, wrote "Solidarity Forever" on January 17, 1915. That day, while lying on the rug in his living room, he scribbled stanza after stanza. The idea had come to him earlier while he was in West Virginia helping the coal miners in the great Kanawha Valley strike. Little did he dream then that song would live on after all his other work was forgotten.
Chaplin recalls: "I wanted a song to be full of revolutionary fervor and to have a chorus that was singing and defiant."
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Sung to the tune of "Tannenbaum / Oh Christmas Tree", the song, "The Red Flag," is the official anthem of the British Labour Party. It used to be sung by the Wobblies in the United States and Canada, although it is rarely heard now on this side of the Atlantic.
The words were written in 1889 by Jim Connell, an Irish journalist who used to say: "I was educated under a hedge for a few weeks." Connell was inspired to write his most famous song by the great London dock strike in 1889. He sent it to a weekly paper called Justice; it appeared in the Christmas issue, and within a week it was being sung in Liverpool and Glasgow. It has continued to be popular in England right down to the present.
Jim Connell originally set his words to the tune of "The White Cockade," an old Jacobite song. Later Adolphe Smith Headingley started the custom of singing it to the tune of "Maryland" (or "Tannenbaum"), and that is the tune used today.
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Sung to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers". First published in the 9th edition (Joe Hill Memorial Edition) of the Industrial Worker "Little Red Songbook," March 1916.
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Sung to the tune of "What a Friend We Have In Jesus/Take It to the Lord in Prayer". First published in the 9th edition (Joe Hill Memorial Edition) of the Industrial Worker "Little Red Songbook," March 1916.
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