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cbabe

(3,438 posts)
Mon Dec 5, 2022, 12:57 PM Dec 2022

Why Our Movements Need to Start Singing Again

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/12/04/why-our-movements-need-start-singing-again

Why Our Movements Need to Start Singing Again

Music is making a comeback in movement spaces, as organizers rediscover how song culture strengthens the capacity to create social change.

PAUL ENGLER
December 4, 2022

by Waging Nonviolence

Social movements are stronger when they sing. That's a lesson that has been amply demonstrated throughout history, and it's one that I have learned personally in working to develop trainings for activists over the past decade and a half. In Momentum, a training program that I co-founded and that many other trainers and organizers have built over the last seven years, song culture is not something we included at the start. And yet, it has since become so indispensable that the trainers I know would never imagine doing without it again.

The person who taught me the most as I came to appreciate the impact that song can have on movement culture is Stephen Brackett, an activist and hip-hop MC known on stage as Brer Rabbit.

A tall Denverite with abundant dreadlocks and an easy-going presence, Stephen started rapping for fun in the fourth grade. As a high school student in the 1990s, he and his friend Jamie Laurie started the Flobots, a group they have dubbed a "band with an agenda." Stephen's stage name, Brer Rabbit, came to him one day during a college freestyle, when he picked up a ceramic rabbit from a countertop. In an "act of divine accidents," as he calls it, he named himself after the figure in folklore "that represents most what a rapper is and can be"—namely, "a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit."

Because his off-stage persona is so warm and humble, it can be startling to watch Stephen transform into Brer Rabbit when he takes the mic in a show, firing off rhymes that denounce destructive state and corporate power while celebrating human potential. Perhaps best known for their viral 2005 single "Handlebars," which went to number 3 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and has racked up more than 80 million views on YouTube, Jamie and Stephen's sharp phrases can be found throughout the Flobots catalog. In their 2007 song, "Rise,"

…more…

https://www.barnesandnoble.com › w › the-little-red-songbook-gary-blanchard › 1118959987
The Little Red Songbook: A Brief History of the Wobblies and Their ...

When a person joined the IWW, they were given a union card and a copy of the Little Red Songbook. The songs in the book, set to familiar tunes of the day, were a great organizing and educational tool. ... Part songbook and part history book, this is a great resource for those interested in the story and song of the American labor movement ...

Available on line

https://store.iww.org/shop/little-red-songbook-38th-edition/


Look for the Union Label 1981 classic ad

https://m.


(What’s your favorite action song?)

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Why Our Movements Need to Start Singing Again (Original Post) cbabe Dec 2022 OP
Bookmarking to come back & read what others favorite activists songs are. -nt CrispyQ Dec 2022 #1
Wisconsin's Solidarity Singers luv2fly Dec 2022 #2
Always liked War- HUH!! good god yall- what is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING Blues Heron Dec 2022 #3
We who believe in freedom cannot rest mahina Dec 2022 #4
Yes, yes, yes! Magoo48 Dec 2022 #5
Ku Ha'aheo mahina Dec 2022 #6
Protecting sacred places cbabe Dec 2022 #7
🤙🏼 mahina Dec 2022 #9
From the check out guy at my local TJs cbabe Dec 2022 #8
The Singing Revolution of Estonia Wicked Blue Dec 2022 #10
This is news to me. Wonderful history. Thank you. cbabe Dec 2022 #11

luv2fly

(2,475 posts)
2. Wisconsin's Solidarity Singers
Mon Dec 5, 2022, 01:39 PM
Dec 2022

Wisconsin’s Solidarity Sing Along
Making Old Labor Songs New
by Michael S. O’Brien

Just after noon on a sunny Friday in late June, forty people gather in Madison, on the lawn of the Wisconsin State Capitol building. Some have come with just their voices, while others carry instruments—a few guitars and ukuleles, a trombone and a concertina—to accompany the day’s activities.

“Number two,” calls out Daithi Wolfe, a soft-spoken fiddle player in a baseball cap and sunglasses.

He raises his instrument to his chin and kicks off with a Woody Guthrie classic. Everyone joins in, and the words have a distinctly local flavor: “This land is your land, this land is my land / From Lake Geneva, to Madeline Island / From the rolling prairies / To our lovely dairies / This land is made for you and me.” The song continues, mixing Guthrie’s original words with updated verses that acknowledge the singers’ ongoing conflict with Governor Scott Walker and the Capitol Police: “This House is your House, This House is my House! / From the rotunda to the governor’s office! / Scott Walker will never push us out! / This House was made for you and me!”

More at

https://folkways.si.edu/magazine-summer-fall-2014-wisconsins-solidarity-sing-along-making-old-labor-songs-new/article/smithsonian

Video at



Blues Heron

(5,898 posts)
3. Always liked War- HUH!! good god yall- what is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
Mon Dec 5, 2022, 02:23 PM
Dec 2022

say it again!

Also Nina Simone - I wish I knew how it would feel to be Free (Billy Taylor)

cbabe

(3,438 posts)
7. Protecting sacred places
Mon Dec 5, 2022, 03:34 PM
Dec 2022
https://www.protectmaunakea.net

Protect Mauna Kea

Stand for the protection of Mauna Kea and sacred places everywhere!

(Had to look it up. Thanks.)

Wicked Blue

(5,767 posts)
10. The Singing Revolution of Estonia
Tue Dec 6, 2022, 12:02 AM
Dec 2022


"Most people don’t think about singing when they think about revolution. But song was the weapon of choice when Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation. The Singing Revolution is an inspiring account of one nation’s dramatic rebirth. It is the story of humankind’s irrepressible drive for freedom and self-determination.

The Singing Revolution shares how, between 1987 and 1991, hundreds of thousands of Estonians gathered publicly to sing forbidden patriotic songs and share protest speeches, risking their lives to proclaim their desire for independence. While violence and bloodshed was the unfortunate end result in other occupied nations of the USSR, the revolutionary songs of the Estonians anchored their struggle for freedom, which was ultimately accomplished without the loss of a single life.

The Singing Revolution tells the moving and dramatic story of how the Estonian people peacefully regained their freedom–and helped topple an empire along the way.

“The young people, without any political party, and without any politicians, just came together … not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands … to gather and to sing and to give this nation a new spirit,” remarks Mart Laar, a Singing Revolution leader featured in the film and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister of Estonia, “This was the idea of the Singing Revolution.”

https://singingrevolution.com/about/
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