Solidarity Forever

A classic labour movement song, just for inspiration. The melody is "John Browns body":

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,
For the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

It is we who ploughed the prairies,
built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops,
endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving
'mid the wonders we have made,
But the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever...

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.

Solidarity forever...

In our hands is placed a power
greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of atoms
magnified a thousandfold;
We can bring to birth a new world
from the ashes of the old,
For the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever...

Kommentarer

Anonym sa…
An excellent song Peter!

I thought I would also post another favourite which I am sure you will enjoy ;)

When Britain first at Heav'n's command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain;

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee,
Shall in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves.

Still mor majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame,
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves.

To thee belongs the rural reign;
They cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves.

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to juide the fair.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never will be slaves.
Mr Subject,

It doesn't get at all nicer when you see the whole text. Say what you REALLY think! :-)

But it's a good song to sing loudly on the streets at night. Just as another song I just came to think about:

Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
of every head he's had the pleasure to know
And all the people that come and go stop to say hello
On the corner is a banker with a motor car
the little children laugh at him behind his back
And the banker never wears a "mac" in the pouring rain
Very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Wet beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit and meanwhile back in

Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen
He likes to keep his fire engine clean
It's clean machine

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my ears
Full of fish and finger pies
in summer meanwhile back

Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
A pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray
And though she feels as if she's in a play
She is anyway
Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer
We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim
And then the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain
very strange

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
Wet beneath the blue suburban skies
I sit and meanwhile back
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes
There beneath the blue suburban skies
Penny Lane
Anonym sa…
Penny lane is a song that has always been a favourite for those who live in Liverpool.

It does tend to get a little tedious when sung over and over again though!
Those who do sing it over and over again tend to say that the tediousness is on purpose. However, this song is quite good as well:

The people's flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts blood dyed its every fold.

CHORUS: Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we'll live and 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.
CHORUS

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 colour now.
CHORUS

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.
CHORUS

It suits today the weak and base,
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place
To cringe before the rich man's frown,
And haul the sacred emblem down.
CHORUS

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.
CHORUS
Anonym sa…
But the best song of all has to be -

Land of Hope and Glory,
Mother of the free,
How shall we extole thee,
Who are born of thee,
Wider and still wider,
Shall thy bounds be set,
God who made the mighty,
Make thee mightier yet!!,
God who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet!
fredrik sa…
This one's OK too (just the last verse, but anyway):



I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
William Blake is interesting, no doubt. And if you have visited the Compass conference as I have, with about 500 people mostly from the right of old Labour being angry with Blair for being a Tory, you realise that the new Jerusalem for the Labour centre-left nowadays is Sweden. I think they succeeded in mentioning Sweden from the platform ten times that day (read more about the Compass conference on www.compassonline.org.uk).

Read Polly Toynbee in the Guardian on "The Swedish Way": http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1162525,00.html. Or read Julian Coman in New Statesman saying "the British left should look to Stockholm for inspiration": http://www.newstatesman.com/World/200506270010.

Speaking on songs and poems, why not this one, to celebrate today's event in the north of Ireland peace process:

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
___________________________
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it to arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God. Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, in humanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

Ros och ris åt Socialistiskt Forum

Dags för en ärlighetsrevolution

Ett anspråksfullt förslag