The Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs! (Charles H. Kerr Library) by Archie Green


The Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs! (Charles H. Kerr Library)
Title : The Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs! (Charles H. Kerr Library)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : -
Language : English
Format Type : Kindle Edition
Number of Pages : 560
Publication : First published March 1, 2007

In 1905, radical labour groups came together to form the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies). The union was a huge presence in the labour movement, and wherever they went, they sang. These songs helped to recruit new memebers to the Wobblies' cause. Originally published in pocket size in The Little Red Songbook, these traditional labour songs are now brought together in their entirety, along with additional songs, rare artwork, personal recollections, discographies and more into this all-embracing Big Red Songbook!

The Big Red Songbook: 250+ IWW Songs! (Charles H. Kerr Library) Reviews

  • Theo Logos

    ”These songs combine harmonizing and hell-raising, rhythm and rebellion, poetry and politics, singing and striking.”
    ~Tom Morello

    ”The IWW literally wrote the book on protest music.”
    ~Tom Morello

    Wobblies (I.W.W.) fought for One Big Union and sang from The Little Red Songbook. Their songs were powerful, angry, often funny.

    ”These songs look an unjust world square in the eye, slice it apart with satire, dismantle it with rage, and then drop a mighty singalong chorus fit to raise the roof of a union hall or a holding cell. Then repeat…until we win.”
    ~Tom Morello, from the Forward

    Joe Hill, famous labor martyr and one of the I.W.W.s most prolific songwriters, understood the power of a song as a means of communicating and building solidarity. He wrote:

    ”A pamphlet, no matter how good, is only read once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.”

    There were many editions of The Little Red Songbook. Songs were added and dropped out. This book, The Big Red Songbook, is a historical artifact compiled to collect most of those songs, along with other Wobblies songs that for one reason or another never made it into The Little Red Songbook. The songs include lengthy introductions. Also included is historical and cultural context provided in the forward from Tom Morello, and the preface by Archie Green.

    ”To understand the IWW’s contagious musical blend, one must hear in the mind’s ear rebel unionist who knew L’Internationale and La Marseillaise, as well as homespun shanties and ballads indigenous to ranch bunkhouse, hobo jungle, or mountain-mining camp.”
    ~Archie Green

    David Roediger contributed an essay of the benefits and drawbacks of the Wobblies tradition of not copyrighting their songs, and Salvatore Salerno’s essay addresses the use of images in the Wobblies tradition (some of which are also collected here).

    The Big Red Songbook is a valuable artifact.
    The songs here collected are our history, our folklore, and in many case, continue as part of a living tradition of labor protest and activism. Learn. Sing. Fight. And remember — Solidarity Forever!

  • Leah

    For all you dodos who only know the chorus to Solidarity Forever. Learn the rest, goddammit.