Category Archives: Song

Mi unica bandera

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Download PDF of Mi unica bandera.

by The Peace Poets

This song cries out for percussion! It’s pretty simple, like all great dance music. In fact, it makes you want to dance in the streets. I would use it the way marching bands use a cadence in the percussion section: as a lively, dancing filler between other songs. It needs a charismatic leader to really bring people in.

The Peace Poets are a collective of artists that celebrate, examine and advocate for life through music and poetry. Their style emphasizes lyricism, rhythm and authenticity. They hail from the Bronx and have been rocking the mic since 2005.

Translation of the Spanish words:
Listen, my people, we bring the power. Freedom is my only flag.
Translation of English words:
¡Arriba, pueblo mío, cóndores míos, águilas mías! Ningún ser humano será jamás ilegal.

I am Not Afraid

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Download PDF file of I am not afraid
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This is a great song to sing at a march or any action where people might get arrested, ICE is present, there is danger from hecklers, or at any action that is focused on the danger we are all in because of Trump and the forces of Authoritarianism. It’s a simple melody and one that can be enhanced by clapping and other percussion, and by improvised harmonization.

Here is a YouTube video that was made at at The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival Theomusicology and Movement Arts Gathering in Raleigh, NC February 2018.

Hard Times, Come Again No More

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Download a PDF of the original Hard Times Come Again No More.
Download MuseScore lead sheet of Hard Times Come Again No More

Hard Times was one of Stephen Foster’s earliest songs, written in 1853. Though the language of the lyrics is filled with nineteenth century sentimentality, still it expresses the pain of poverty and the divide between the rich and the poor in a way that is just as real today as it was 170 years ago. The YouTube recording, below, by Emmy Lou Harris, et al, is truly amazing.

This recording by Emmylou Harris, with Kate & Anna McGarrigle & Mary Black & Rufus Wainwright is my favorite recording of Hard Times…

Hold on Just a Little While Longer

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This is a fantastic song; but I am never sure about its message. Will everything be all right, or are we whistling in the dark? However you feel about the truth of the sentiment, the simplicity and urgency of this song is very moving. If you feel that everything might not be all right, I’ve added an alternative lyric, “Justice is coming, this I know,” which is taken from The Poor People’s Campaign Songbook. Or you could write your own lyric. I’ll leave it with you to decide.

There are a lot of excellent recordings of this song floating around on the internet. Here are just a few…

Battle Hymn of the Republic

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Another great song from the Civil War—though this one may be more familiar to many as… 

“Glory, glory hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler,
Knocked her on the bean with a rotten tangerine
And she sunk like a German submarine.”

The original tune for this song was, John Brown’s Body. A song about the abolitionist, John Brown, who was put to death after a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859. If we allow ourselves to feel it, this song, with it’s simple, repetitive rhythm and it’s three-chord harmony, is still a stirring evocation of the righteousness we long for as a people.

The Battle Hymn of the Republic (LYRICS)

1. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

2. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

3. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;”
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

4. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

5. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Link to Odetta singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic

The Battle Cry of Freedom

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Download PDF of Battle Cry of Freedom

This is a great, patriotic song from the Civil War. It can be sung indoors with a piano or, if you are lucky enough to have some band instruments for accompaniment, sing it at a rally or demonstration. I love this kind of music and have discovered rather late in life that I am a radical, left wing, commie, pinko, gay, effete intellectual snob because I am, underneath it all, a devout patriot who believes in the founding principles our nation is built on.

Battle Cry of Freedom (Lyrics)

1. Yes we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
We will rally from the hillside we’ll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.

CHORUS
The Union forever, Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the Traitor, up with the Star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!

2. We are springing to the call for
Three hundred thousand more,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
And we’ll fill the vacant ranks of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom.

3. We will welcome to our numbers the loyal true and brave,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
And altho’ he may be poor, he shall never be a slave,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.

4. So we’re springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom,
And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.

Link to a choral version of Battle Cry of Freedom from the movie, Lincoln.

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ’round

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Download MuseScore transcription of Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ’round

This is a classic protest song that was used in the fight for integration starting in the 1950s and ’60s, but going back much farther. It is worthwhile, when organizing music for rallies, to vary the mood and tempo of the songs. This song, which, often sung in a “happy-clappy,” summer camp style, can be very powerful and dignified when sung to a slower tempo. The version in the video below by Sweet Honey in the Rock illustrates what I mean.

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round (LYRICS)

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round, Lord,
Turn me round, turn me round,
Ain’t gonna let nobody, turn me round,
I just keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’,
Marching up on freedom land.

…Jailhouse,
…Fire hose,
…Segregation,
…no dogs, Lord,
…No War, Lord,
…Intolerance,
…Oppression,

(Other words ad lib.)
…no ICE-man
…Soldiers
…Steve Miller
etc.

Link to YouTube Video by Sweet Honey in the Rock