This is another of the songs for which Joe Hill composed words and music in his prison cell. In more recent years it has been changed, adapted and updated by numerous artists. Hazel Dickens rewrote the lyrics, singing the song Bluegrass style, and her version is probably the most often sung. John McCutcheon used Dickens’ version of the words and wrote his own very contemporary melody. Our version goes back to the original sheet music published by the union. We found it exciting to realize that Joe Hill wrote what is essentially a ragtime march, and as we looked over the original lyrics, we found them to be historically strong and not requiring an update. The music is typical of the popular music of the early twentieth century, the heyday of ragtime and Tin Pan Alley. The song was first published in the1916 edition of the IWW’s Little Red Songbook, the “Joe Hill Memorial Edition.”
There were notably two young women in the IWW movement at the time that fit the description of “the rebel girl,” and both carried on correspondence with Joe Hill while he was in prison. Young Katie Phar, known as the “IWW Songbird,” grew up in a Wobbly family in Spokane, Washington, and was just ten years of age at the time of Joe’s execution. The other woman was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who was ten years older than Katie Phar.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn met Joe Hill only once, in May of 1915. She was the first visitor he had after he was sentenced to death. The visit had been preceded by a nearly five-month-long exchange of correspondence. So Hill was very familiar with Flynn’s views on the union and the class war, and he had also heard about her skill and artistry as an orator and organizer, undoubtedly knowing of the prominent role she played in the Lawrence Strike three years earlier. The night of November 18, 1915, his last telegram from prison was to her, and was a poignant
acknowledgement that the entire time he was working on the song, he was thinking of her:
“I have been saying Good Bye now so much now that it is becoming monotonous but I cannot help to send you a few more lines because you have been more to me than a Fellow Worker. You have been an inspiration and when I composed The Rebel Girl you was right there and helped me all the time. . . . With a warm handshake across the continent and a last fond Good-Bye to all I remain Yours as Ever. ––Joe Hill”
The next morning at sunrise, Joe Hill was taken to the place of execution.
lyrics
There are women of many descriptions
In this queer world, as everyone knows.
Some are living in beautiful mansions,
And are wearing the finest of clothes.
There are blue-blooded queens and princesses, Who have charms made of diamonds and pearls; But the only and thoroughbred lady
Is the Rebel Girl.
That’s the Rebel Girl, that’s the Rebel Girl! To the working class she’s a precious pearl. She brings courage, pride and joy
To the fighting Rebel Boy.
We’ve had girls before, but we need some more In the Industrial Workers of the World.
For it’s great to fight for freedom
With the Rebel Girl.
Yes, her hands may be hardened from labor, And her dress may not be very fine;
But a heart in her bosom is beating
That is true to her class and her kind. And the grafters in terror are trembling When her spite and defiance she’ll hurl; For the only and thoroughbred lady
Is the Rebel Girl.
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/
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