Singing as protest.

I was struck yesterday by a picture on one of the news channels of a black singer. I clicked it and his voice soared out at me.
"I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you or me."
Sung in a deep baritone by Paul Robson I listened to the end and sighed. It had taken me right back to my teen age years.
Joe Hill had been executed for a crime. I can’t remember what but his main problem was his blackness. The song attributed his death to his colour.
As a protest song it worked and we used to sing it along with "The red flag"
at various gatherings.
I haven’t heard it for years but it all rushed back to me yesterday.
When I went to college I found I was the only student who actually knew all the words to the various protest songs. The Red Flag, Joe Hill and the rest were all part of the student pretence to be radical!
After meal times groups got together regularly either to dance or to sing. I led most of the singing because I knew the words, and Jerusalem was always included...along with all the rest of the would be socialist out pouring.
It was never serious...we would all have run miles if we’d been called on to actually do something...
But we enjoyed the singing.
I now wonder what today’s protest songs might be?
Does anyone sing "The Red Flag " any more!
The concept of singing out your anger might well have died an inglorious death though I do occasionally hear a hymn sung in that way, usually at funerals in memory of a lost loved one.
I can’t imagine what song today expresses the real passion felt by us young socialists then but I hope there are still some about.



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