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I'd very much appreciate translations or notes on any of
these songs. I'd also appreciate the lyrics of any other
Anarchist, libertarian and rebel songs you might be able to
send
me.
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Songwrites and singers
today
- Steve
Molly
A Wobbly musician/songwriter's page, which has some good
background info on songs and the history of American
radical song. He's also got some recordings there.
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The Tradition of Libertarian Singers
by Rafael Uzcategui
To think of insurgent popular song from Latin America's
perspective is to easily evoke the names of Victor Jara, Ali
Primera, Carlos Puebla, Inti-Illimani or Silvio Rodriguez.
But, the importance of this way of struggling using songs is
neither accidental nor unique. There has always been singing
linked to all revolutionary movements in our continent, some
times hidden by the events themselves or by interested
reconstructions of the history of our socio-political
struggles. We would like to celebrate here the existence of
a tradition of popular singers, comrades of the idea of
social justice with liberty: anarchism. This exercise in
memory, unlike those by the "true dissidents," does not
pretend to be exclusive and, least of all, the whole truth.
As any historic reconstruction -seen from a particular point
of view- it contains fragments of truth. It also pretends to
connect old singers with current ones, the struggles they
are part of and to recreate possible links of community
solidarity.
Libertarian tango and corrido
Angel Cappelletti -one of the historians of
Latin-America's libertarian ideals- asserts that anarchism
has a wide tradition in our continent, rich in pacifist and
violent struggles manifestations of individual and
collective heroism, in feats of organization, in oral,
written and practical propaganda, literary works, stage,
pedagogic, cooperative and community experiments. Its
decadence --after the main role libertarians played between
1870 and 1930-- is attributed to three causes: The series of
coup-d'etats occurred around the '30s and the repression
following each of them; the foundation of the Communist
parties, that, thanks to the support of the Soviet Union,
received material strength and a prestige lacking in the
libertarian organizations and in third place, the apparition
of national-populist currents, more or less linked to the
armed forces. The anarcho-syndicalist groups developed a
vast cultural work directed to the peasant and labor
majorities during the first years of the XX century. Soon
after, the proclamations of newspapers and books were taken
to the stage, to the plastic arts or turned into poems. In
Argentina, libertarian "payadores" were the chroniclers and
heralds of the agrarian struggles in the southern cone.
Likewise, composers of tangos and milongas were activists of
the ideal and immortalized the memory of successful labor
struggles or of the consequences of bloody government
repressions. In Mexico, corridos Zapatistas and Magonistas
gave popular expression to demands for land, liberty and
other demands of clear anarchist vein. But, it is beyond the
Rio Grande river where the libertarian song finds its
highest and best development and popularity, linked to the
agitation instigated by the people's Big Union, The
Industrial Workers of The World, IWW.
Stoking the flames of discontent
Joseph Hillström, 23 years old, filled with memories
of his Swedish skies, arrives to the United States, in
October 1902. He makes his home in California and takes part
in strikes and political movements struggling for the rights
of the disposed: masses of immigrants arrived in New York
harbor to break their backs in hard working days. With a new
name, Joe Hill, he joins The Industrial Workers of The
World, IWW, in 1910. One year later, in the heat of the
strike in the piers of San Pedro, he wrote his first song.
While the Southern Pacific hired strike breakers, with his
songs Joe breathed courage to the workers on strike.
Something magic happened: the workers began to sing his
tunes, together and in solidarity, in their 44 different
languages, that way des troying the attempts of their bosses
of dividing and making them fight against each other--the
old imperialist, "divide and conquer" technique. Joe goes
from city to city to join the protests. There have always
been songs in the revolutions, but with Joe Hill, the
strikes began to be always carried out singing, as never
before. His popularity with the people, wins the Swede the
hate of the authorities and a bad beating that left all his
body terribly wounded in San Diego.
Hill's formula was as simple as it was effective: he
would take the melodies of popular songs of the day; and he
would ad stanzas that were creative, combative, witty and
catchy. To Joe Hill a book was good, but a song learned and
constantly repeated was the best propaganda. The IWW began
to publish working class songs in pamphlets called, "Red
Songbook." In one of them, 13 were songs the Swede
considered his "songs to keep alive the flames of
discontent" with names such as, The Preacher and The Slave,"
"Casey Jones, The Union Scab" and "When The Shannon River
Runs."
A conspiracy is concocted, in 1914, to silence his voice.
Accused of having killed a policeman and his son in an
assault, he was jailed for 22 months. From his prison cell,
Joe Hill continued writing songs and encouraging his
comrades to tirelessly keep on the strikes. The IWW
mobilized all its energies against the evidently fixed
trial, but could not stop the death sentence sought by the
authorities from the first time they pronounced the name Joe
Hill. The Swede, knowing the turmoil his death sentence was
creating in the United States, said farewell to one of the
union leaders with these words: "Good bye, Bill. I die like
a true rebel. Do not waste your time mourning. ORGANIZE!" He
was tied to a chair and a heart of white paper was placed on
his chest that a firing squad of five mercenaries hit the
right spot. It was November 19, 1915. 30, 000 workers in
Chicago bid him the last farewell singing with tears in
their eyes and with their fists raised high.
The Guitar that Killed Fascists
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born three years before Joe
Hill was murdered. Considered the most important
Northamerican folk singer of the first half of the XX
century, Guhtrie continued the Swedish martyr and
anarcho-syndicalist IWW singers tradition as part of the,
"Almanac Singers" or the "People's Songs," unions of
progresist singers that supported workers struggles with
their songs and concerts. With influences of Irish music and
Black Blues, his repertoire included more than one thousand
songs of protest. His songs related stories of good,
generous bandits and of murdered anarchists; his guitar and
his harmonica also sang about children and old people, about
the woods and the mountains, and the arid plains of the
country, creating a style of total support for the popular
struggles of the moment. Guhtrie, traveling the whole
country by freight train, gave concerts with a guitar that
had a sticker that read: "This machine kills fascists."
Woody Guhtrie has left us monothematic records about the
conflicts of his time: songs about the building of the great
Bonneville and Grand Coule dams, (Columbia ballads, 1937),
his Sacco and Vanzzetti Ballads, (1946) and, above all, his
"Dust Bowl Ballads," where he talks about the peasant
migration soon after the crisis of 1929, including the
extraordinary, "Tom Joad," a seven minutes ballad that
summarizes the 500 pages of John Steinbecks's novel, "The
Grapes of Wrath."
During then '60s, Woody Guhtrie was the most powerful
influence in the so-called "Second Generation of Folk
Singers": Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, John Mayall, Donovan,
Grateful Dead, who, with electric instruments, tried to
reproduce his spirit, but very few managed to emulate his
persona.
Four decades after, the United States is once again
plagued by protests and police clashes. Diverse groups
coincide in their critiques of the consequences of economic
globalization and take their concerns to the streets of
Seattle, Washington, DC, New York, San Francisco and other
cities to shout slogans, to dance in the carnivals of
resistance... And to sing. The spirit of Joe Hill and Woody
Guhtrie comes alive again in those demonstrations, in the
singing voices of young performers such as Ethan Miller.
Ethan, who lives in Maine, is involved in movements in his
area against capitalism; movements that are also
anti-authoritarian; in fact, he lives and works in the JED
Center, a collective and community place that supports and
organizes programs for social change. Miller has actively
participated in events against globalization, sharing the
stage with other musicians such as David Rovics, Jim Page,
Charlie King and Karen Brandow.
They also sing in Europe
It is also undeniable the anti-authoritarian passion on
the other side of the water. During the Spanish Civil War,
the feats of the confrontation would transform popular
melodies into anthems of resistance that came to form a
legacy still sang in our days. In France, shelter of exiled
libertarian Cenetists, Georges Brassens (1893-1981) sang in
cabarets his songs to prostitutes, delinquents and other
disinherited since 1952, with a mordacity and tenderness
that won him a name in the French bohemia. As an anarchist,
he ridiculed every form of power and was involved in the
movement by publishing poems in the libertarian press.
Brassens' recordings secretly went through the boundaries of
fascist Franco's Spain and influenced the style of the young
son of an anarchist --Cenetist to be more precise-- named,
Joan Manoel Serrat. The legacy of singer composer Brassen is
of more than 2,000 recorded songs and his spirit is still
alive in singers such as Serge Utge Royo, who, besides his
own prolific career, actively participates in French
libertarian circuits.
It is evident that the style popularized by Brassens '
irony and street themes-- is reflected in the songs of
consecrated Spanish singers, such as the named Serrat,
Joaquin Sabina and others. But even more interesting is the
rebirth these days of libertarian gatherings to play the
guitar by those who grew up in the ferocious and indomitable
counterculture: punk. By the mid '80s a group of restless
youth tried to develop a space as an alternative to the
traditional musical market. Besides the explosion of the
phenomenon known as, "Basque radical rock" --Kortatu, La
Polla Records, Eskorbuto, MCD, Hertzainak, etc--, punk
offered a possibility to express ideas about the Iberian
peninsula and to relate to movements such as
anarcho-syndicalism itself, the struggle against OTAN,
insumission and "okupation"; a true multi shaded movement
inspired by an ideology definitely anti-authoritarian. Bands
such as Juanito Piquete y Los Mataesquiroles, Antimanguis,
Black Carcomas, Productos Carnicos and Kolumna Durruti come
out of the present breeding ground of libertarian songs,
that tone down their rage with more relaxed rhythms for
audiences of every type. As Josu Arteaga, who writes about
the scene for the magazine, Ekintza Zuzena, says, "desperate
to break the noise barrier, Nuts who showed up dressed only
with one guitar, needed exhibitionists, balms for the broken
hearts, songwriter singers ready to give back power to the
word." From this libertarian roots are Juanito Piquete, Moi
Rojo, Pito Karkoma, el duo Paso a Paso and Sonoris Kausa,
linked to others of more traditional trajectories such as
Lengua de Trapo, Sena Jaraiz and Pablo Garabato, who, from
their first recordings, sing to the struggle and to life,
who have also produced a collection titled, "Without
Excuses: 19 Songwriter Singers of the XXI Century," issued
cooperatively by 8 independent recording companies.
The lyrics of these new minstrels of utopia move from the
unionist topics to bring to us the thematic of the
collectives in which they participate: struggle against
prisons, critique of neoliberalism, feminism... and the
reinvindication of anarchy.
Argentina, Ecuador
Argentina, turned into the land of pickets, popular
assemblies and the struggle for the dissapeared is also
Gabriel Sequeira's pampa. He is in his 30s and close to the
libertarian organizations of Buenos Aires, where he began in
the world of rock'n roll. He proudly introduces himself as
the "anarchist trobadour," be it in the Foro Social Mundial
de Porto Alegre or in Congress Square together with Las
Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. With one recording to his
credit--independent, of course--Sequeira performs in any
stage of resistance that asks for his help.
In Ecuador we find Jaime Guevara, a "chamo" --as the
people call him with affection in Quito-- with 29 years of
song and activism, a central character in the fast growing
libertarian militancy of the Ecuatorian capital. Maddly
beloved, he has won the affection of the popular sectors,
his eternal audience in his concerts in favor of human
rights, antimilitarism, and the struggle for justice. Jaime
had a band until stage precariousness --the streets, the
demonstrations-- forced him to continue alone only with the
company of his guitar, that once went to jail with him and
stayed over 28 days more than El Chamo. "They gave my guitar
back to me in pieces." Rejecting the military like ways of
some folkloric groups of protest, Jaime puts laughter,
everyday life and humor in all his songs. With one recording
and preparing another, Guevara has no doubts in "acolitar"
--cooperate-- singing some of his 500 themes written for
solidarian gatherings, such as, Jornadas Continentales de
Resistencia Contra el ALCA, of October 2002, in Quito, when
"El Chamo" was in the front lines of the barricades.
Health, song and anarchy
If power is synonym of silence, liberty is also named,
Word. Tuneful voices will not cease to sing with and for the
struggle, for and with the feelings that make us singular as
human beings. The modern minstrels in these times of the
internet and nanotechnology, arm themselves with a guitar
and a knapsack of antiauthoritarian values. If we look
carefully, perhaps we may see one of them walking in front
of our home. If we listen attentively, we may enjoy ballads
that still stir flames of discontent.
CONTACTS:
Jaime Guevara <[email protected]> Gabriel
Sequeira <[email protected]> Juanito Piquete
<[email protected]> Pito Karcoma
<[email protected]> Sena Jaraiz <
[email protected]> Sonoris Kausa
<[email protected]> Paso a Paso
<[email protected]> Lengua de Trapo
<[email protected]> Pablo Garabato
<[email protected]> Ethan Miller
<[email protected]>
By <rafaeluzcategui-A-hotmail.com>
From: Riorefuge-A-aol.com
Text taken from The A-Infos News Service
****** News about and of interest to anarchists
***** INFO:
http://ainfos.ca/org
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