Category Archives: Song

Till We Stop this Coup

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Download PDF of Stop this Coup

“The Peace Poets are family born of Hip Hop, heart, and hope in New York City.  Some have been friends since as early as three years old and over time they have built an artist collective of poets, Hip Hop performers, and educators founded on this friendship and their common love for community and creative expression.”

Till we stop this Coup is “…a loud, direct song to call out an attempt at a coup and reaffirm our commitment to resistance. This song is an ENERGIZING AND UNIFYING song to call out any attempt at a coup and declare our commitment to resistance. It can be used early and often to express to media and any observer of our action that we are both peaceful and committed to our cause.  It can also be used when we might feel shaken up or confused, we can sing this to remind ourselves: ‘we know what to do.’”

Everybody’s Got a Right to Live

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Download PDF file of Everybody’s Got a Right to Live!

This song was written for The March on Washington in 1968. It was originally directed at the way racism resulted in poverty. Both the original words and the simplified words are included on the PDF. It’s a great song when you have a bunch of people who don’t know many songs. The words are simple and the tune is easy to learn in a call and response way.

The is a video from the Poor People’s Campaign in 2021

Here are Rev. Frederick Douglass KirkPatrick and Jimmy Collier, who wrote this song, singing the original version in 1969.

Everybody ought to know

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Download PDF of Everybody Ought to Know
Download MuseScore lead sheet for Everybody Ought to Know

Everybody Ought to Know is a good song for kids. I have added some suggested chord symbols and raised the key from C Major to F major (otherwise it starts on a low G and children should learn to use the higher registers of their voices!). The kids here sound great (if someone has some money to send them to tune the piano, I bet they would love it!) and the song has a lot of potential. It’s a song for which you can make up new verses as needed, add harmonies (as able), add percussion, clapping, etc., and add simple dance and mime movements.

With kids, I think this should be sung antiphonally, with half the kids singing the “call” and the other half singing the “response”; then, everybody sings the last line together. It would be easy to write a simple, two-part harmony for the last line if your kids are up to it.

Here is a YouTube video of by the kids from the Erickson Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Mississippi singing Everybody Ought to know.

We shall not be moved

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Download PDF of We Shall Not Be Moved

We Shall Not Be Moved was adapted by the labor movement in the 1930s and in the 1950s and ’60s was sung in Civil Rights movement. It originates from, I shall not be moved, an African-American slave spiritual, hymn, and protest song dating to the early 19th century. It was likely sung originally at revivalist camp-meetings as a slave jubilee. [Information from Wikipedia]

I like this version of Mavis Staples singing We Shall Not Be Moved because it has an actual video of Mavis singing and also includes her telling a great story about singing this in the late 1950s in the Civil Rights movement.

However, this recording of Mavis singing We Shall Not Be Moved may be better, musically.

Somebody’s Hurting My Brother

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by Yara Allen

Download PDF of Somebody’s Hurting My Brother with harmony parts

Somebody’s Hurting My Brother is a wonderful call and response song by Yara Allen* that needs a good strong leader. The response is simple enough for just about anybody, but there are lots of possibilities for more experienced singers to harmonize and add interesting clapping or other percussion rhythms. We The downloadable PDF version has a suggested harmony for the response in four parts.

Yara Allen teaching, Somebody’s Hurting My Brother

*Yara Allen is a singer, songwriter, poet, and musician, and a native of Rocky Mount, NC. She is also the Director of Theomusicology and Cultural Arts with Repairers of the Breach (Goldsboro, NC) and Co-Director of Theomusicology and Movement Arts with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

We are Singing for Democracy (Siyahamba)

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Download PDF of We are Singing for Democracy
Download PDF of Siyahamba with full harmony and words in English, Spanish and Zulu

Siyahamba is a song from South Africa. Here, Ellen Oak and Laura Beck have rewritten the English words to fit the need of this moment. The downloadable PDF has the original version in English, Spanish and Zulu, as well as the version with “We are Singing for Democracy.”

Here are the Original words in all three languages:
Original Zulu:
Siyahamba ekukhanyeni kwenkos.
Siyahamba ekukhanyeni kwenkos (repeat)
CHORUS
Siyahamba, ‘hamba. Siyahamba, (ooh) ‘hamba
Siyahamba ekukhanyeni kwenkos.

English:
We are marching in the light of God, we are marching in the light of God. (repeat)
CHORUS
We are marching, marching, we are marching, (ooh) marching,
We are marching in the light of God.

Spanish:
Marcharemos en la luz de Dios, Marcharemos en la luz de Dios.
Marcharemos, ’remos, Marcheremos, (Uuu), ’remos,
Marcharemos en la luz de Dios.

This version is the same arrangement as the one in the PDF.

Listen to the harmony on this MP3 file…

Here is the Mwamba Children’s Choir singing Siyahamba

Pay Me My Money Down

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Download the PDF of Pay Me My Money Down

This song will really get people dancing and clapping! Bring a tambourine! If you are lucky enough to have a band that has some experience with New Orleans jazz, they can go to town. I love Bruce Springsteen’s recording of this. You can listen (and see) it on the YouTube link below. The downloadable PDF has some simple ideas for harmonization.

Some suggestions for alternative lyrics—or you could write your own!

I thought I heard the President say,
Pay me my money down,
“Social Security’s here to stay.”
Pay me my money down!

Well, Elon Musk with his chain saw,
Pay me my money down,
He stole my money and he broke the law,
Pay me my money down!

They cut off U-S-A-I-D,
Pay me my money down,
Now Donald says, “That ain’t on me!”
Pay me my money down

And the ICE-man took me from my street,
Pay me my money down,
El Salvodor jails got no bed sheet,
Pay me my money down.

If you tell Donald Trump his word ain’t law,
Pay me my money down,
He’ll throw his dinner up on the wall,
Pay me my money down.

When Donald Trump is finally out,
Pay me my money down,
I’ll spend my money and I’ll sing and shout,
Pay me my money down.

Bruce Springsteen and his band singing Pay Me My Money Down

I’m Gonna Walk it with You

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Download as PDF: I’m Gonna Walk it with You

“It looks like you might have a hard road, but I’m gonna walk it with you.”

You get to a certain age, you find that you have not been able to sustain promises to other people, or you have not been able to make promises to other people because you knew you wouldn’t be able to carry them out. This is a great, an amazing song; but I don’t think I could ever sing it. I wish I could. It’s the kind of promise that maybe Jesus could make. Or, maybe, a promise that we could make as a family, or a village, or a culture. Maybe I could sing this with the support of other people. I love this song.

Utah Women Unite gathering in the Utah State Capital January 2017

Brian Claflin and Ellie Grace singing I’m Gonna Walk it with You

Don’t you want to vote?

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Download PDF of Don’t You Want to Vote
Download MuseScore file of Don’t you Want to Vote?

This is fun, short and really adaptable.

Come on, come on, come on
Don’t you want to vote?
Come on, come on, come on
Don’t you want to vote?
Come on, come on, come on
Don’t you want to vote?
Yes, I want to vote!

Have you registered somebody?
Don’t you want to vote…

Will you meet me at the polling place!
Don’t you want to vote…

Go and raise your voices!
Don’t you want to vote…

Yaray Allen Leading her song, Don’t You Want to Vote?