“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.
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?
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.
This is a good one for small groups that get together for a vigil or a service. It’s easy to learn and will help introduce harmony. This is a song that works better inside so the singers can hear each other.
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 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…
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…
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.
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.
