How about a music thread for a change?
Putting this up because a Counterpunch article mentioned "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" and it brought back memories of my dad crooning this to me as a youngster. (Got distracted from the actual article... lol)
According to Wiki,
The song's authorship is uncertain, but according to hobo poetry researcher Bud L. McKillips the words were written by an IWW member. Some verses, though, may have been written by a Kansas City hobo known only as "One-Finger Ellis," who scribbled it on the wall of his prison cell in 1897.[1] There is also a questionable theory that Harry McClintock could have written it in 1897 when he was only fifteen.
Sung to the tune of the Presbyterian hymn "Revive Us Again", the song was printed by the Industrial Workers of the World in 1908, and adopted by its Spokane, Washington branch as their anthem later that year. The success of their Free speech fights of 1909 led to its widespread popularity
The version published in 1908 goes:
- Why don't you work like other folks do?
- How the hell can I work when there's no work to do?
- Refrain
- Hallelujah, I'm a bum,
- Hallelujah, bum again,
- Hallelujah, give us a handout
- To revive us again.
- Oh, why don't you save all the money you earn?
- If I didn't eat, I'd have money to burn.
- Whenever I get all the money I earn,
- The boss will be broke, and to work he must turn.
- Oh, I like my boss, he's a good friend of mine,
- That's why I am starving out on the bread line.
- When springtime it comes, oh, won't we have fun;
- We'll throw off our jobs, and go on the bum.
- There are lots of versions of this, but here is a recording
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uKbIkYGsIg
- and another version:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Ll51kcbjo
- Another song my father sang... -
- You Ain't Been Doing Nothing if You Ain't Been Called a Red
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Ll51kcbjo
- And another version:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcewIwDlDPE
- This is by Robin Hood!!! LOL
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kltRoCPFPKM
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