Description:
Seventy-seven songs--with words and sheet music--of solidarity, revolt, humor, and revolution. Compiled from several generations in America, and from around the world, they were originally written in English, Danish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Yiddish.
From IWW anthems such as "The Preacher and the Slave" to Lenin's favorite 1905 revolutionary anthem "Whirlwinds of Danger," many works by the world's greatest radical songwriters are anthologized herein: Edith Berkowitz, Bertolt Brecht, Ralph Chaplin, James Connolly, Havelock Ellis, Emily Fine, Arturo Giovannitti, Joe Hill, Langston Hughes, William Morris, James Oppenheim, Teresina Rowell, Anna Garlin Spencer, Maurice Sugar--and dozens more.
Old favorites and hidden gems, to once again energize and accompany picket lines, demonstrations, meetings, sit-ins, marches, and May Day parades.
Brief description:
Elizabeth Morgan--a longtime socialist activist (including running for Congress in Ohio on the Socialist ticket), accomplished musician, and progressive educator (founding the Arthur Morgan School)--compiled this songbook over a period of many years, completing it in 1958. It was published for the first time in 1997 by the Charles H. Kerr Company.
Review Quotes:
"I've always known our political and social movements as singing movements, and have been continually astonished at the scope and variety of our people's music... These songs are like endangered species that have been restored to the present, to the land of the living. They stuck up for us long ago during dark and troubled times. Our times are dark and troubled, too, but our old songs are still here with us to see us through. Sing away!"
--Utah Phillips