“Which Side Are You On?” is one of the most popular union
songs. According to Alan Lomax, who collected folk songs for the
Archive of American Folk Songs at the Library of Congress, this song was
written by Florence Reece, the 12-year-old daughter of a
miner who was on strike in Harlan County, Kentucky. Lomax wrote
that she sang it to him in front of the family hearth of a log
cabin in 1937. This version
is sung by Pete Seeger, one of the most popular folk
singers of the 20th century. This is a version
with allusions to contemporary corporations and
politicians.
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Diane…all these gifts of my youth have had me listening to Seeger, Baez, et al, for the last hour. Much thanks for the reverie and for reminding me how much these folk singers shaped my opinions and actions during the 60s when California, and the nation, were in such turmoil. Haight Ashbury, the Minutemen, John Birch Society, Weathermen, Woodstock, all of it, floods back.
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These songs shaped my youth and I was born in 1973!
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Actually, in a beautiful new picture book, Which Side Are You On, by George Ella Lyon, she explains that the song was written by the mother as bullets zinged through the house, nearly killing her and the children. In her acceptance speech for an Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice award, Lyon explains how she interviewed folks in her own county, which was where the song was written, to get the story just right.
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PLEASE, EVERYONE WHO VALUES TEACHERS RIGHTS AND AN END TO THIS MADNESS, SIGN THIS PETITION BY ASSEMBLYMAN AL GRAF TO GOVENOR CUOMO TO REPEAL RTTT AND TEACHER EVALUATIONS (AND SPREAD THE WORD)!
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You can see (and hear) Florence Reece singing in Harlan County USA, but of the Coal Wars movies, my favorite is still “The Harlan County Wars” (featuring Holly Hunter at her best before she became part of that horror movie, “Won’t Back Down”).
If, however, the reader is looking for a good Labor Day “labor” movie (after watching “Norma Ray”), try “Matewan.” Let me know how you like it.
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Thank you, George: that scene in the film with Florence Reece singing her song to the striking miners of Harlan County, forty years after she initially wrote it, is incredibly powerful and moving.
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Again, thanks. One of my favorites. I often sing this in my head when dealing with administrators. The good news is that more of them seem to be coming around to the right side.
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w.youtube.com/watch?v=AnLurTmvzAs
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Billy Bragg 1985 “Which Side Are you On?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8fCQ-Dctm8
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Here’s a slightly more leftist hip hop version: http://youtu.be/8Dr05tXktSo “Which side are you on?” by Rebel Diaz. This is my favorite. ;-p
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