The Music of Labor.•*¨*•.¸¸♬

Labor music are music written to attract independent laborers to join laborer groups (unions). In order to do so, the songs are usually written to popular tunes, such as hymns and folk songs. As we discussed in class, the lyrics are written to specific purposes, and they are also easy to memorize. According to Michael L. Richmond's article The Music of Labor: From Movement to Culture, from 1960's, the audience of labor music started to shift, there are songs of all kinds of social issue, such as segregation, women rights, and the conflict in Vietnam.

Richmond also wrote in the article that “the unions had their heroes as well”. The union Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, had their hero, Joe Hill. He was born in Sweden, and came to the United States at the age of 23. He joined the Wobblies around 1910, and wrote political songs for them. The song the Rebel Girl was one of those songs.This song was inspired by a women called Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. She was one of the leaders in Wobblies. She led strikes, gave speeches, and did all kinds of work that a labor leader and an activist usually does. She visited Joe Hill when he was in prison in 1995, and Joe Hill admired her a lot. He wrote this song, “the Rebel Girl”, saying that he was inspired by her, and that he hoped that more and more women could become women like her. He wrote both the lyrics and the music of the song. This song can show that how powerful that women laborers were in the laborer union, at least in the Wobbles.

Labor music still exist after 1960's. An example would be Si Kahn's song “Aragon Mill”. Written in 1974, this song brings its listeners to an abandoned mill in Aragon, Georgia. At that time, the globalization has just started, and the lower price of foreign made goods, and the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) make lots of domestic business enterprises have less profits. Many enterprises had to close shops, which led unemployed workers to increase in society. Kahn wrote in this song that “now I'm too old to work and I'm too young to die”, which expresses the despair of unemployed workers.

lyrics：

The Aragon Mill
Si Kahn
At the east end of town
At the foot of the hill
There's a chimney so tall
It says Aragon Mill.

But there's no smoke at all
Coming out of the stack
For the mill has shut down
And is never coming back.

And the only tune I hear
Is the sound of the wind
As she blows through the town
Weave and spin, weave and spin.

There's no children playing
In the dark narrow streets
And the loom has shut down
It's so quiet I can't sleep.

The mill has shut down
'twas the only life I know
Tell me where will I go
Tell me where will I go.

And the only tune I hear
Is the sound of the wind
As she blows through the town
Weave and spin, weave and spin.

I'm too old to work
And I'm too young to die
Tell me where will I go now
My family and I.

English scholar John Selden said that “More solid things do not shew the complexion of the Times so well, as Ballads and Libels”. It is true in terms of labor music. Although labor music had a long history, each song has their own purpose, and reflects the unique color of that time. Another quote from Andrew Fletcher goes: “If a man were permitted to write all the ballads, he need not care who made the laws of a nation”. Labor music can make real changes in society. They were written to attract laborers to join the union in the first place, and as Richmond points out, that “music provided a powerful tool to recruit new members”, they did success in hard times.