Sunday, September 04, 2016

Still Looking For Labour Day Songs To Cover...

WaitingForTheGreatTune
ForwardVille


...Sent out the call on the Twittmachine earlier today.

Suggestion so far are:

Joe Hill (Trad)
John Henry (Trad and JIsbell/DBT)
Power In A Union (BBragg)
Cumberland Blues (GDead)
1913 Massacre (WGuthrie)
Ginger Goodwin (GCarter; Local Story)



(I'm betting scotty on denman has about a million)


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Monday Night Update...scotty and all kinds of folks come through in the comments...

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15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Dropkick Murphys cover of Ed Pickfords The Workers Song is a favourite of mine.

sd said...

How about a newer one from the 70's? "Look For the Union Label" with all the ladies singing.Garment workers if I remember .

RossK said...

Thanks Anon-At-The-Top!

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Don't know that one sd...I'll look it up, thanks.

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Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Our very own DOA's cover of the Dil's "Class War" has to right near the top of list.

e.a.f. said...

back in the early 1980s a tape cassette was released by a group of women who sang labour songs. One of them was bye bye Rita (as in Rita the leader of the Socred Party)

B.C. Federation might remember the names and the songs, it was sold at one of their conventions. oh, one of the songs, was Mandella

Anonymous said...

Working Man by The Dubliners.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvFqVgz1AGo

RossK said...

Thanks Everyone--

Happy Labour Day!


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Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnmhBul6svk

RossK said...

Blue Collar...Nice one Anon-Above.


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Scotty on Denman said...

"Where the Fraser River Flows" written by Joe Hill.

"...We'll show no white feather/ where the Fraser River flows."

Anonymous said...

allentown

Scotty on Denman said...

I just realized I performed this number, "Where the Fraser River Flows," in Seattle a few years ago; it was at the Folk Fest's 40th anniversary; the labor [sic] community had a evening of labor poetry, skits and music; me and my buddy Del Phillips went here with our partners---biggest joint I ever played, that's for sure.

Anyways, they loved the songs (and Del's poetry reading).

I'd heard Joe Hill visited BC back during the 1910s when there was a lot of labour unrest in the mining industry, and, presumably, he wrote the song about that occasion. He was executed by firing squad in 1916. Our own Ginger Goodwin was shot by a bounty-hunter at Comox Lake in 1918. I recall somebody telling me Joe Hill visited Vancouver as a general strike was fomenting in the wake of Goodwin's murder, but, obviously, that is myth.

RossK said...

Thanks for Allentown Anon-Above--

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Very, very cool Scotty.

Have you heard this tune about Ginger Goodwin by Gordon Carter?


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Scotty on Denman said...

Yes, I believe I saw him perform it at a Miners' Day in Dodge, beside Ginger's stone---unless I'm mistaken; there are quite a few tunes devoted to Ginger. Heck I even wrote one myself, performed it at a couple lefty gigs and eventually retired it: it was about how petty it was for Stan Hagen, when he was elected as a BC Liberal (he was a Socred previously when he got thrashed by the NDP), to take down the "Ginger Goodwin Way" sign on the stretch of the new Inland Island Highway just below the cemetery where Ginger's buried (did you know miners had to physically prevent authorities from spiriting away Goodwin's corpse?)---Hagen was at it almost the day he got back in---and also just as the new Highway was completed on time and on budget by union workers under the outgoing NDP government (compare that to the Coquihalla!) Nice Highway, too, good alignment, settling ponds, sediment traps, elk fencing and amphibian crossing tunnels---very good quality. It saved a lot of lives---I know because I used to commute daily for years from Denman to north of Campbell River on the old highway: it was deadly. The Socreds never built a new one, as sorely as it was needed for decades, because we didn't vote their way around here.

Anyways, I always wondered if Stan was getting his revenge by taking down Ginger's official highway sign because some years previous I'd complained in the local paper about his "Welcome to Hagen Country!" sign at the entrance to Courtenay--- Socred logo, regular highway post and sign, the whole bit. And I complained to BC Elections that he hadn't removed his campaign signage. Got back from a couple weeks in camp and my housemate said he was glad to see me: the phone had been ringing since my letter was published; seems I'd signed it with just my initial "S" in front of my surname and it offended a staunch Socred with the same last name---only his first name was Sydney. After a brief phone chat, I noticed he'd got a letter in the same paper threatening legal action it for not clarifying that it wasn't him who made Stan take his sign down (he helpfully mentioned my name and a nice lady phoned to thank me.)

There's a big difference between "Welcome to Hagen Country!" and "Ginger Goodwin Way."

RossK said...

A big difference, indeed.

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