The Big Red Songbook: 250-Plus IWW Songs [Paperback]

Archie Green (Editor), David Roediger (Editor), Franklin Rosemont (Editor), Salvatore Salerno (Editor), Utah Phillips (Afterword)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2007

This is indeed an incredible endeavor. For sure the most comprehensive collection of rebel workers songs and poems ever compiled in English. It includes ALL the songs that appeared in the IWW s celebrated "little red songbook" from 1909 through 1973, plus dozens of others that never made it into the songbook. Here are the songs of Joe Hill, T-Bone Slim, Dick Brazier, Ralph Chaplin, Covington Hall and other Wobbly legends, as well as lesser known but ought-to-be legends such as Eugene Barnett, Paul Walker, and Henry Pfaff. For the first time anywhere, here's a good selection of songs by women Wobblies: Anges Thecla Fair, Laura Payne Emerson, Sophie Fagin, Jane Street, Laura Tanne and others, as well as songwriters from other continents--including Australians Bill Casey and Harry Hooton, the Englishman Leon Rosselson, Germans Ernest Riebe and John Olday, and the Scotsman Douglas Robson. A special section focuses on variants and parodies of IWW songs: a Depression-era version of "Hallelujah I'm a Bum," Jack Langan's 1960s version of "Solidarity Forever," an Earth First! adaptation of Joe Hill's "There is Power" by Walkin' Jim Stoltz, and Hazel Dickens' bold update of "The Rebel Girl." Best of all, perhaps, is the wealth of essays, analysis, references, bibliographies, and discographies, provided by Archie Green, his coeditors, and other collaborators, providing not only historical/biographical context, but also a wide range of perspectives on the Wobbly counterculture and its enduring legacies. With an afterword by Utah Phillips!

Product Details

• Paperback: 550 pages
• Publisher: Charles H Kerr (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882862774
• ISBN-13: 978-0882862774
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #926,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Misleading title, September 25, 2007

By 

William Branch "Will Branch" (Milwaukee, WI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Big Red Songbook: 250-Plus IWW Songs (Paperback)

The last time I checked, songs consist of two things - lyrics and melody. Anyone considering buying this book should know, then, that it contains NO MELODIES. "The Big Red Lyric Book" would be a better title. It's a fine book for anyone who wants a history of the songs of the IWW - it has a wealth of essays, illustrations and historical biographies. If you want to use it to actually learn some Wobbly songs, though, it's not going to serve. I was disappointed when I first flipped through the book - I wanted a songbook, not a historical survey.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Agreed: Disappointed that it wasn't sheet music, March 26, 2009

By 

Julia Wells (Sherman Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Big Red Songbook: 250-Plus IWW Songs! (Hardcover)

I was expecting sheet music and was quite disappointed to flip it open and see lyrics only. Some of the songs say, "To the tune of [...]," but not all. A couple of ways to cope with this:

* Since most of these songs' tunes are from the beginning of the 20th century, in many cases the copyrights have expired. For instance, "Union Maid" is to the tune of "Red Wing," and there are copies of the sheet music to "Red Wing" available in JPGs online.

* You can find maybe forty recordings out of these 250 songs at [] That website is like the ethnomusicology version of iTunes. If all else fails, you can hear how the tune goes by downloading the tracks for $0.99 apiece.

Fear not, fellow union brothers and sisters; you can still find ways to sing these songs.

One inexplicable thing I'd like to mention is they only number their songs up through song #190 or so, but when you look in the index in the back to find the songs, they are listed by song number and go well into the 270s. I can't tell why they didn't feel comfortable doing an index by page number; it would have made it so much easier to find everything.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American History through the looking glass, October 1, 2007

By 

David H. Fenimore (Truckee, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Big Red Songbook: 250-Plus IWW Songs! (Hardcover)

These days when organized labor is typecast as another big and corrupt special-interest group, it's useful to remember back to the days when there were no retirement or unemployment benefits, no health plans, no Social Security, no workplace safety regulations -- and when it took grass-roots efforts by ragged and democratic organizations like these to establish the basic rights and protections we now take for granted, in the face of persecutions, beatings, burnings, shootings and lynchings by hired goons, vigilantes and even the US armed forces. A lot of this history has only recently appeared in US textbooks at the college level, never mind in the secondary schools.

This collection feels rich and detailed: a number of essays, scraps of memoir, and illustrations augment the headnotes which illustrate each song. Some of the lyrics are over the top in their worshipful attitude toward an idealized Soviet Union and a simplistic reading of Marxist ideology. But remember that in the teens, 20s and 30s the Communist Party was the only organized political movement that took more than token interest in labor issues. And as Pete Seeger has said, "A good song is a triumph of oversimplification." These songs were the engine of that struggle, and medicine for all its hurts, and proof that Woody Guthrie was right when he claimed that music can change the world.