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Paper Heart - Si Kahn & Charlotte Brody

from When We Stand Together by Magpie

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Even though true, the story of Joe Hill’s judicial murder and that of his subsequent funeral are the stuff of legends.
The day before the execution Joe wrote to his friend and fellow worker, Big Bill Haywood:
November 18, 1915
W.D. Haywood
Chicago, Illinois
Goodbye Bill: I die like a true rebel.
Don’t waste any time mourning––organize!
It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange
to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.
Joe Hill
Hill had his choice of methods of death and he chose the firing squad. The executioner pinned a paper target to his chest to designate the position of his heart and he was strapped to a chair in the courtyard of the prison. There were five marksmen, but only four were issued actual bullet cartridges. One was a blank. This ensured that any one of the men could plausibly question, even for himself, whether he had actually fired the killing shot. It is said that when the command was called out, “Ready, aim...” it was Joe who shouted out “Fire!”
His body was, indeed taken well out of Utah, but not buried just over the state line. He was taken to Chicago where an enormous crowd attended the funeral, tens of thousands of people, clogging the streets leading up to the West Side Auditorium.

Joe’s body was cremated, the ashes were divided up and placed in 600 envelopes. The envelopes were sent to IWW offices around the world and distributed among fellow workers with the following note attached:

In the words of the chorus Si and Charlotte’s stirring tribute alludes to another famous honoring song, probably the most famous of all, penned by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson in 1936. In “Joe Hill,” the chorus intones, “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me...”
We never forget.

lyrics

There's a long, long line of people Trying to keep from crying There's always someone dying But today's just not the same There's a man shot dead in Utah With a paper heart pinned on him Framed up without pardon

I guess you know his name.

Well, you say you saw him out last night But I hear him every day
In the voices of the people
In the songs they sing and play
They framed him up and they shot him down This whole wide world's his burying ground But the songs of the working people
Are his marking stone.

If heaven is One Big Union
I know that's where I'll find him Playing cards with Big Bill Haywood Telling jokes with Mother Jones Casey Jones and long-haired preachers Mr. Block and Scissor Bill
"Sent to hell a-flying"
By songs no one can kill.

credits

from When We Stand Together, released July 23, 2022
words and music by Si Kahn and Charlotte Brody

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James Connolly Upstate NY IWW image

James Connolly Upstate NY IWW Albany, New York

The James Connolly Upstate NY IWW branch is a union for all workers based in NY. Musicians and other workers wishing to organize can find us here upstatenyiww.wordpress.com/contact/

Our benefit album is out May 31st. Support our organizing workers! ... more

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