We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Workers of The World, Awaken – Joe Hill (1915)

from When We Stand Together by Magpie

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

During his incarceration in Utah awaiting his execution, Joe Hill continued to write words to other tunes but also composed words and music to a few gems, and this is one of them. Borrowing on some themes from The Internationale, both in the melody and the lyric, the song is nonetheless distinctively Joe Hill and IWW and is a joy to sing. It was sung as part of the program at Joe’s funeral in Chicago in 1915, but even though it’s a major anthem, for some unknown reason, while the lyrics are often quoted, the song has been too seldom sung. Bucky Halker’s recording of the song with the St. Paul Swedish Men’s Chorus is a notable exception. While Joe’s parodies are famous and sung over and over, this, probably his greatest song, is not. This song, along with his other prison compositions, demonstrate just how accomplished a musician Joe Hill actually was, not just a lyricist of parodies.

lyrics

Workers of the world, awaken!
Break your chains; demand your rights! All the wealth you make is taken
By exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission From your cradles to your graves?
Is the height of your ambition
To be good and willing slaves?

Arise, ye pris’ners of starvation! Fight for your own emancipation! Arise ye slaves of every nation
In One Union Grand!
Our little ones for bread are crying, And millions are from hunger dying. The end the means is justifying:

‘Tis the final stand!

If the workers take a notion, They can stop all speeding trains; Every ship upon the ocean,
They can tie with mighty chains; Every wheel in the creation, Every mine and every mill, Fleets and armies of the nation Will at their command stand still.

Join the union, fellow workers, Men and women, side by side; We will crush the greedy shirkers Like a sweeping, surging tide; For united, we are standing,
But divided, we will fall;
Let this be our understanding: “All for one and one for all.”

Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might! Take the wealth that you are making: It belongs to you by right!
No one will for bread be crying: We’ll have freedom, love, and health When the grand Red Flag is flying In the Workers’ Commonwealth!

credits

from When We Stand Together, released July 23, 2022
words and music by Joe Hill

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

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

contact / help

Contact James Connolly Upstate NY IWW

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like James Connolly Upstate NY IWW, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Seafood Sam joins the show to discuss his newest album, " Standing On Giant Shoulders".
listen now