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Protest Songs in Left Wing Politics
With Chet Gardiner
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." This paraphrase of famous Anarchist, Author Emma Goldman's retort when accused of "hurting the cause" by having too much fun effectively sums up the heart of this show.
Over the years, major social and political Movements have been strengthened by music and song. Where would the Civil Rights Movement have been without "We Shall Overcome"? Where would the Anti-Vietnam war Movement have been without "Masters of War" and "Fixin' to Die Rag"? Where would the Labor Movement have been without "Solidarity Forever" or "The Internationale"?
If you haven't been paying attention, the major social and political movements of today are also being supported and enhanced by great political songs.
Within the constraints of overbearing, corporate "copyright" laws, each episode will examine a great left-wing protest/political song. We will trace each song's history, its impact on the time that produced it and its relevance to today.
Chet Gardiner is a musician/activist whose "protest" credentials span nearly 50 years. Thanks in no small part to Bob Dylan's "Masters of War", Chet resigned from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in March of 1964 upon realizing that he was politically Pacifist and no longer wished to learn how to kill innocent civilians in Vietnam. By 1968, Chet was a lead guitar player in an acid rock band and was playing anti-war protest gigs in downtown Palo Alto, CA, culminating with nearly getting clubbed by "friends of Nixon", San Mateo County Sheriff's Deputies on election night '68.
Through his work on prison reform in the early 70s with jazz drummer/Lutheran minister Harold Varner in California, Chet was rewarded by gaining the attention of J.Edgar Hoover's CoInTelPro operation culminating in a public "frisking" on a jetway at San Francisco Airport. In the 1990s, Chet joined the S.F. Freedom Song Network and was honored to play Movement and Labor music with great protest singers like Faith Petric, Jon Fromer, Jimmy Collier and Guy Carawan, the man who introduced "We Shall Overcome" at Highlander Folk School. Chet can still be found raising hell and raising consciousness with song, story and humor in Tucson, AZ.
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Joe Hill: The Preacher and the Slave
Welcome to our 2nd Episode about Joe Hill’s most famous song, The Preacher and the Slave. "The Preacher and the Slave" was written by Joe Hill in 1911. It was written as a parody of the hymn "In the Sweet By and By". In this song, Joe Hill coined the now familiar phrase "pie in the sky."
The Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the Wobblies) were founded in 1905. They concentrated much of their energies organizing migrant workers in lumber and construction camps. Joe Hill was an organizer in the IWW and devoted his life to the "awakening of
He wrote his songs to inspire solidarity in the ranks of the IWW and to recruit new members.
He and the Wobblies encouraged a "conscientious withdrawal of efficiency," which was not a call for violence, but rather a sprinkle of sand in the workings of machinery, and, more specifically, the efforts of non-union friendly employers...
listen to other episodes as they are released at Protest Songs In Left Wing Politics - http://septicradio.com/protestsongsleftwing.php
A production of Septic Radio.
Download Podcast or Use Own Player
The Internationale
If you know this song at all you probably think that “The Internationale” was the “Soviet National Anthem” (if you even remember the “Soviet Union”). Well, this episode will detail the real history of the song and how it's still alive and even more relevant today.
In spite of what the USAmerican propaganda machine would have you believe, The Internationale is NOT the National Anthem of the Soviet Union …
Eugene Potter wrote the original lyrics of The Internationale in June of 1871 to commemorate the Paris Commune, which the French Army had just crushed with great bloodshed.
After French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and the fall of the French Empire, the workers of Paris had taken over the city and ran it themselves.
The Commune declared its aim as "ending the anarchic and ruinous competition between workers for the profit of the capitalists”, and the "dissemination of socialist ideals"...
Learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale
Music Credits:
Alistair Hulett (from CD “Dance of the Underclass”, 1991)
Maxx Klaxon “Internationale 2000”; by Maxx Klaxon (from CD “Paranoid
Style”, 2005)
Billy Bragg - http://www.billybragg.co.uk/
Maxx Klaxon - http://klaxon.tv/
Alistair Hulett – 1951 – 2010 – RIP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtAfIjRKUak
http://www.alistairhulett.co.uk/
listen to other episodes as they are released at Protest Songs In Left Wing Politics - http://septicradio.com/protestsongsleftwing.php
A production of Septic Radio.
Download Podcast or Use Own Player
Introduction to Protest Songs in Left Wing Politics
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." This paraphrase of famous Anarchist, Author Emma Goldman's retort when accused of "hurting the cause" by having too much fun effectively sums up the heart of this show.
Over the years, major social and political Movements have been strengthened by music and song. Where would the Civil Rights Movement have been without "We Shall Overcome"? Where would the Anti-Vietnam war Movement have been without "Masters of War" and "Fixin' to Die Rag"? Where would the Labor Movement have been without "Solidarity Forever" or "The Internationale"?
If you haven't been paying attention, the major social and political movements of today are also being supported and enhanced by great political songs.
Within the constraints of overbearing, corporate "copyright" laws, each episode will examine a great left-wing protest/political song. We will trace each song's history, its impact on the time that produced it and its relevance to today.
listen to other episodes as they are released at Protest Songs in Left Wing Politics - http://septicradio.com/protestsongsleftwing.php
A production of Septic Radio.
Subscribe to Protest Songs in Left Wing Politics
