Challenging Classism

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Folk Songs

Description

These songs depict the early rural culture that was dominated by working/ lower class individuals. Seeing as this culture has limited historical documentation, early folk songs offer important detailed information for many isolated and obscure rural regions. These songs preach opposition to bosses and government policy and also stress unification among workers. They can be categorized into two distinguishable groups:

• Working songs: these songs encourage pride in hard and dangerous labor. They make light of strenuous working conditions and inadequate pay. They were sung by the workers while at work.

• Expressions of discontent: These songs advocate aggressive labor unions and often challenged the outrageous economic demands of the Populists during the 1890’s.

The Wobblies

Industrial Workers of the World, often referred to as Wobblies, was formed in 1905 to advocate a single union among all workers. In 1909, the published a book of protest songs titled Songs of the Workers, with “To Fan the Flames of Discontent” (their motto) printed on the cover of every copy. It contained 32 labor balods and became known as the “little red songbook”.

SONGS

In 1959 a songbook was created to challenge the left ideology of the Wobblies, entitled The Bosses’ Songbook, Songs to Stifle the Flames of Discontent. It contains parodies of old folk songs, including Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is My Land”:

This land is their land

This land is not our land

From the plush apartments

To the Cadillac car land

From the Wall Street office

To the Hollywood star land

This land is not for you and me. (Denisoff, 1969, p.436)

Folk Music Revival

During the 1960’s, many popular musicians started incorporating folk music styles into their work. This was done as an expression of cultural heritage and allowed musicians to identify more closely with their audiences. This revival allowed for “the transfer of folk music from an esoteric series of ‘publics’ to that of a mass audience, which in turn changes the elements of the original product into an ‘emergent reality.’" (2) This revival was countered in 1963 when the Fire and Police Research Association of Los Angeles began investigating folk music, as they though it aided in the rebellion of the American youth; however, folk music influences can still be heard in today’s popular music.

Bob Dylan

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