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The Big Red Songbook: 250-Plus I.W.W. Songs
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550 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 17, 2023
”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!
~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!
July 13, 2009
Sal Salerno, one of the contributors to this book, is one of my local heroes. Really good read on the brilliance and importance of working people in bringing about social change and the solidarity that music brings.
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August 6, 2021782.42159 B5923 2016
April 28, 2022
A lot more of the book is dedicated to historical context than strictly the songs themselves, which I didn't expect ahead of time, but I enjoyed it greatly.
July 9, 2017
For all you dodos who only know the chorus to Solidarity Forever. Learn the rest, goddammit.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews