English adaptation of Nestor Makhno's song. Translation primarily by Emmett Doyle, with assistance and discussion of lyrical choices by Cal Robinet, Liza Gorkova, and Marc Trius. 

C Gm A 
Our wheels are spinning on the highway 
C F 
Freedom has no price
Gm A Bb
The fascists gather ‘round like locusts 
G A
We’ll watch them coming through our sights

Chorus:
Bb Dm
Mother Anarchy adores her children
Bb A
Mother Anarchy will deal the cards
Bb Dm Bb Dm
With a blanket of lead from the back of a tachanka 
Bb A Dm
Anarchy sends her regards! 

Our chests are beating with a fire
Sneaking closer in the night 
We offer no apologies 
We ask no quarter in the fight 

Chorus


The master’s grip is cold and lifeless
The worms are eating it away 
This world we’re building in our hearts
Is growing stronger by the day 

Chorus


Edit: It's nuts to me that this is my most popular song, given how terribly arranged and mixed it is. The whistle needs to be way quieter, the tambourine as well, there should be melodic fills between vocal lines at the ends of verses probably on the bouzouk. Honestly, the whole thing was a quickly made demo to pitch the song to the Wooden Shoe Ramblers before we broke up. The idea was that we'd replace the whistle with accordion and we'd have a strong bass line to give way more drive than the tambourine did. This was intended to sound way more similar to the most well-known Russian language version (Makhno was, but didn't speak, Ukrainian) which is widely shared online. 

This is not a completed song, at all. I'd actually love to re-record it with the right instrumentation, and perhaps some backup singers.

This version is free to cover, adapt, modify, and add on to, for anyone willing to abide by our Creative Commons protections and give attribution and share alike.

Mother Anarchy

This translation of Dan Berglund's Swedish song for those killed in the workplace is dedicated to Björn Söderberg, murdered by fascists for exposing their infiltration of his local union. The struggle is against both the paramilitary violence of the fascists, and the daily structural violence of capitalism.

Key of Bm, performed on a bouzouki, D pennywhistle, and bodhran.


Bm A Bm 
I ate my oats, and read the morning news
D A
Kissed my wife goodbye, and then put on my boots
F#m A Bm 
Underneath the stars my footprints in the snow
Bm A Bm 
Marked the road that 13 years have seen me come and go

On that day, the north wind blew around
We were welding on a platform, 30 meters off the ground 
I heard a crash, and someone shouted Sven
It disappeared in blood and fire and darkness fell again

As I woke up, in a box made out of pine, 
I figured I’d be damned, it’s the end of the line 
My wife’s was pale as ice and tears fell from her eyes
While the priest prayed unto god with his nose turned to the sky

And I was lowered into my simple hole
Twiddling my thumbs in the midnight of my soul
“Dear Comrade and Corpse”, some distant voice there said
Welcome to the Free Republic of the Murdered Dead 

And there in the rocks, roots, sand, and soil
People lay in rows, the whole ground was full 
Of women and men who’d worked on everything
And the earth shook from their voices as they all began to sing 

We are the dead of the factories and the mines, 
Of fisheries and lumber mills, butchered like swine  
500 every years, bled out from the herd
And the greatest of the murderers in Jacob Wallenberg

We are the ones who ran the factory lines, 
Carried out like firewood and stacked up in the pines
We bowed before our killer and made sure his belly grew
While the parties and the unions were spit-shining his shoes 

Now we shout for revenge, so everyone can hear
Our bitter song in the roar of engines and of gears
In the whisper of the pines, and in the north wind’s breath
Demanding you to do your duty and avenge our death

We sing for you through the noise of the machines, 
Let every strike carve out for us the pathway to be free 
Class against class, that’s the battle we must fight
And we will rise in silence and be marching at your side

Free Republic of the Murdered

A song celebrating the struggle and eventual release of Noel and Marie Murray, two Irish anarchists who were tortured and convicted without jury for the murder of a Gardai during the robbery of a bank. The two were convicted to hang, and waged a legal battle for their lives, their freedom, and the ability to see one another. 

I was not able to find anything about Noel or Marie after their release, or able to contact them in order to write the song.

Noel and Marie Murray

The Ballad of Pat Murphy

Come furl your sails and I’ll tell you a tale 
Of the greatest of all Irish captains
And his proud victory out on the salt sea 
In glorious nautical action 
When Russia she rolled her fleet over our shoals
For conducting some training maneuvers
Then Pat Murphy from Cork to the challenge sailed forth
With his old fishing boat for a cruiser

Chorus:
We’ve no submarines on this island of green, 
No war ships at all worth discussin’
But the kings of the waves are the fishermen brave 
Since Pat went to face down the Russians

He said no way in hell will you fire your shells 
Over Porcupine Bank and the seabight, 
for those lovely blue whiting at this time are biting, 
And putting them off wouldn’t be right
For Pat and the boys had read up on the noise 
From the sonar, the screws, and munitions
Would play hell on the whales like an earful of nails
And put them in such a condition

Chorus

Now if those big Russian arks spoke of Lenin or Marx, 
Then you’d think it was just a red herrin’
But since the Union is dead, now they ain’t even red, 
So Pat and the boys would be farin’
Armed with their nets and their radio sets
They made up their plans for assemblin’
Off of Robert’s Head with a banner that read, 
neither the White House or Kremlin

Chorus

Now the warships were done, for their big naval guns
Would not weather Pat Murphy’s commotion
and that big Russian fleet, they beat a retreat 
And steamed away into the ocean
You may boast of your Nelson, or anyone else 
Who battled armadas or scurvy, 
But in all of the sea, holding admiralty  
Is your man who call Patrick Murphy

The Ballad of Pat Murphy

D, A D
It’s high up on the scaffold I stand, hemp on my neck and hemp on my hands
D, A Bm
Wait for the hangman to get the command, and swing us off of the wood 
But sure I’ve no fear to be underground, whether to heaven or hell I am bound
For I’ve spent all my life in wage slavery bound, digging the devil’s own blood
D A G D, D G A
Through all of the years of our bodies abused, our voices cut down and petition refused
D A G D, D A Bm 
Now condemned by the virtue that we were accused- that to murder, we did conspire
But murder is the operator’s law, there’s blood on his money and blood in his craw 
And all that I did was for liberty’s cause, a proud son of Molly Maguire, 

Molly was raised in the old country, to fright off the landlord and Orange yeomanry
When the Hunger forced us to come over sea, she crossed with us over the water
From the sun of the New World down into the hole, they sent Paddy down to cut out the coal
The flesh off your shank is the company’s toll, to be feeding your sons and your daughters
From the cradle to grave you’re picking the shale, your back bent in two and your face ever pale
But the smoke from the accident at Avondale, raised Siney’s voice like a fire
For the company’s stock will we go to Old Nick? They value our lives no more than a pick-
So we joined in the union and under the picket, awakened our Molly Maguire

The market fell into a crash and a grind, the companies got their scabs from the breadlines 
And in alliance against us combined, the season was ripe for the killing 
The gun thugs, the Modocs, the coal police bands gunned down Ed Coyle and tortured the land
with Mrs McAllister’s blood on their hands, their coffins were crying for filling
Through the strike we were living on water and bread; Molly cries out revenge for our dead
We gave them our lives, now we’ll give them our lead, or set their fine manors a-fire, 
We’ve heard our children with hunger pains moan,these anthracite valleys now carry their bones
Denied the law’s justice, we carved out our own- the justice of Molly Maguire

The Pinkerton stool to the screws did report, the Iron Police locked us up in the fort, 
And the company man sat as judge on the court, to hand down the operator’s laws
And Kelly, that Judas, to slip from the noose, to point to the union’s leaders was induced
But the crimes they’re accused of is just an excuse, to strangle the life from their cause 
Our confession could never exonerate them, what use is the word of a killer condemned, 
cut off in your bloom with a rope on your stem, for all the crowd to admire
The miners and wives and families stand, in silent salute for the death of each man 
Picked by the snitch and the coal boss’s hand, to die as a Molly Maguire

Molly Maguire

Lyrics by Eugene Lerner (additional verses by Emmett Doyle)- this recording does not yet include the additional verses, and will be updated in time. 

Image is of unarmed Ukrainian civilians turning back a Russian tank

D G D
She’s not even thirty, she’s scared and she’s dirty
D A
But she’s staying where she’s been assigned
Bm G
This war isn’t pretty, but she loves her city
D A D
And that’s why she’s holding the line.

He’s sixty years old and he’s feeling the cold
But his granddad marched West towards the Rhine
To protect the Black Earth, this land of his birth
And that’s why he’s holding the line.

G D
He’s seen it before, knows they’ll do it once more
G A
As they did to his country last time
D G D
With tanks, lies, and mortars, they remade the borders
D A D
And that’s why he’s holding the line.

She came to this war from a far foreign shore
Her helmet says: “No Passaran!”
She’s read of back then, and said: “never again!”
And that’s why she’s holding the line.

He opposed at great risk, Putin’s lackey in Minsk
And one night had to flee through the pines
But he’s found some new friends, and he’ll be back again
And that’s why he’s holding the line

Chorus

The old woman sits packing medical kits
While the shelter lights flicker and shine
Though her fingers are sore, through the night she makes more
And that’s how she’s holding the line 

When this war is won, there’ll be things to be done
Friends to bury and ports to unmine
As they’re brave, they are skilled, and Ukraine shall rebuild
But first we must help hold the line!

Chorus:
We've seen it before, knows they’ll do it once more
As they did to the country last time
With tanks, lies, and mortars, they remake the borders
And that’s why we’re holding the line.

Holding the Line (Ukrainian Resistance)

In Bakhmut Town
To the tune of Roddy McCorley

Oh come you who love freedom and a tale I’ll have you hear
Of comrades who came to Ukraine, as foreign volunteers
From Russia and America, Ireland and all around-
And side by side, they fought and died, on the streets of Bakhmut town 

I’ll sing of Finbar Cafferkey, from the island of Achill
Who’d worked to save his native land from a pipeline built by Shell
Who’d worked to rescue refugees who elsewise might be drowned
And who fought out in Rojava but who fell in Bakhmut town 

There was Cooper Andrews, who had come from Cleveland’s rusty shores
Who’d gone out west to fight the fires , after fighting in the wars
He worked build the people up and tear the powers down, 
And gave his life as freedom’s price that night in Bakhmut town

Dmitry was scholar, soldier, anarchist, and friend
Born in the belly of the beast, he went where struggle went 
From Bolotnaya to Belarus, he faced the tyrants down
And died a Russian rebel on the streets of Bakhmut town

When they last stepped up the street, a rifle in each hand
beside them marched in grim array a stalwart, earnest band
They held the line, to leave none behind, as shells fell all around
And side by side they fought and died that night in Bakhmut town

Oh how the thunder of their guns shook the foeman’s heart 
Through furious fire and heavy odds, they played the hero’s part
And many from Wagner bit the dust, and fed the hungry ground
But before night passed, they’d breathed their last, and fell in Bakhmut town

They fought not for a nation, and they fought not for a state
It was for people’s freedom that our friends went to their fate
And for the day, long on the way, that all empires come down
Those heroes came in freedom’s name and fell in Bakhmut town

Cooper Andrews Memorial Fund:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/317qi30ti0

Bakhmut Town; a tribute to Finbar, Cooper, and Dmitry

Northfolk Southern 32N, hauling 150 cars including loads of chloroethene (vinyl chloride), butyl acrylate, 2-ethylhexyl acrylate, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, isobutylene, combustible liquids, and benzene residue, derailed in the town of East Palestine, OH, at 8:55 pm on Feb 3, 2023.

At the initial crash, several cars of industrial chemicals caught fire and began to pollute the immediate area. Local emergency crews made the call to do a controlled burn of further derailed cars, releasing hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air. 1000,000 of hazardous materials leaked out of the derailed cars, and killed over 40,000 fish and other aquatic animals in the nearby watershed, which feeds into the Ohio River.

The impact of this derailment is still unfolding. I wrote the song during the recording of the album.
lyrics
It was comin’ through the pine on that Norfolk-Southern line, steamin’ at three engines strong
And sailed over the rails through East Palestine, a hundred and fifty cars long
A fast-rolling mile of tankers, industrial chemical filled
But there’s fire on the snow where those tanker cars glow, and there’s clouds brewin’ over the hills

Chorus
And that trains come rollin’ through like thunder
And those shakes go rattlin’ through the stone
And the spill they burned away, is settled in the clay
And that ache is settin’ in my bones

Life’s like a jail for the men who work the rail, its man and machine to the brink
And those red tired eyes are telling no lies, the chain’s gotta crack in the links
And the carriers cut every corner, and the workers they warned me and you
But red and blue alike crushed the railroad strike, to keep the stock rollin’ through,

Chorus

There’s dead fish down in the river,
There’s a reek of the fire on the wind
And we’ve choked on that smoke that the chemicals stoked,
And there’s poison working under your skin

[Instrumental verse]

Chorus

East Palestine Derailment

In October of 2021, a wave of strikes swept the US, from food processing to manufacturing, to education, to health care, food service, and more. The strikers at John Deere, members of the UAW, demanded among other points, a plan to end the two-tier system which John Deere had put in place to disadvantage newer-hired employees and normalize in lower pay and benefits as the older workers retired. They held their picket lines for a month, pushing back against pressure from both the boss and officials within their union to accept a lesser deal, until they won a contract that made solid progress towards their core demands. The strike was one of several signs of a growing rank and file militancy within the UAW membership.

Richard "Dick" Rich, 56, a 15 year worker at John Deere and a 12 year Lieutenant of the Iowa National Guard, was struck and killed by a car on the picket line in Milan, Iowa on October 27, 2021. He is remembered for his sly and imaginative humor, the laughter he sparked in others, and his ability to turn poker games into comedic events. This song is dedicated to him, and the life that was taken from him, sacrificed for his union brothers and sisters.
lyrics
D G D
Dawn on out on the picket, in the morning light
A G D
The headlights from the scabs come hauling into sight
D G D
Damn their injunctions, damn their jails and fines
A G D
Whatever it takes, we’ll hold the line
A G D
All across the grain belt, we’re striking at John Deere
A D A
they’ve split our contracts up into first and second tier
D G D
But my father walked the line for me; I walk it with my son
D A
To get unity before this strike is done

Chorus
G D G Bm
There’s those on the top of the world, and there’s those who build it below
G D BM A
But the time comes for us to be rising, and the times comes to reap what you sow
D A BM G
So keep your hand on the plough, hold the line and don’t give up now
D A D
We’ve planted our seeds, now we’re watching ‘em grow


It’s a trick as old as time, it’s heartless and it’s cruel-
Break us into tiers for the old divide and rule
It’s pulling up the ladder on the workers still to come
And pulling down the strength that we have won
And the union’s not a monument you carve into the rock
It’s a legacy you water or it withers on the stalk
And power’s not in board rooms, the ballot, or the courts
It’s in action when we cut production short

Chorus

God rest you, Dick Rich, and your memory lives on
Killed out on the picket that morning in Milan
A car came speeding up the street and fixed you in its lights
And you died, fighting for our rights
You gave your life for the workers- your people and mine
And for those families toiling, generations on the line
Now you’re in the space between us, your spirit’s in our hands
When we strike, when the union takes a stand

Chorus

A month out on the line and we held that picket strong
‘Til the scabs from middle management couldn't carry on
All our working lives, they’d ground us to our knees
Until we stood on those lines in unity
So whenever any worker is under an attack
There’s a brother at your side and a sister at your back
Because an injury to one is an injury to all
We either stand together or we fall

Chorus; repeat last two lines:
D A BM G
So keep your hand on the plough, hold the line and don’t give up now
D A D
We’ve planted our seeds, now we’re watching ‘em grow

John Deere Strike

The Teamsters strike of 1934 was the months-long struggle in which the truckers and their allies- from the building trades to the unemployed councils- faced down the union-busting Citizens Alliance vigilantes and the murderous Minneapolis Police Department, and won the right to organize unions. After winning a strategic strike in the winter for the truckers at coal yards, the Teamsters launched a second strike in the spring which demanded recognition of the union across a broad swath of the industry, centered on Minneapolis's Warehouse District. The strike saw pitched battles between the strikers and police/Citizens Alliance forces, such as the Battle of Deputy's Run, as well as cowardly and murderous gun-wielding ambushes of strikers by the MPD, such as at Bloody Friday. It also saw the Farmer-Labor Party under Olson call in the National Guard against both labor and the strikebreakers. In the end, the union overcame opposition by the bosses, the police, the fair-weather "friends of labor" in office, and the bureaucrats of their own union's International.

It was one of several large strikes that summer which forced the hand of the Federal Government, causing the Roosevelt administration to pass the National Labor Relations Act to bring strikes into a...  more
lyrics
Em G D
This summer’s been a hard one, Out on the picket line
Em G D
In the kitchen and infirmary they’ve also served the time
Em G D
Four months now we’ve been striking, the Teamsters and the rest
Em G D Em
Four months now we’ve been striking and they haven’t beat us yet

Chorus:
G D Em
So rise up for the union, don’t give away to gloom
Em G D
Can’t you hear the marching feet, they’re beating out their doom
Em G D
Hear the young ones crying, neither sigh nor pine
Em G D Em
We’ll see that times get better when we hold that picket line

When first that I moved out here after serving in the war
They said there’s work for every hand you never need be poor
But the winter found us standing asking work beside the wall
There’s scarce enough to go around to keep a home at all

Remember how last winter the coal yards won their share
And on that day back in May we won the market square
Now they’ve got us in the holding pens to try to keep us down
They can hold us in the stockade but they’ll never hold the town

Those Citizens Alliance boys, God damn them all to hell
Likewise to Olson’s guardsmen and the city cops as well
Who shot down Ness and Belor out on the market way
I wish I had a rifle, I would give them all the same

The winter’s coming fast now, the stores are getting thin
Each passing dawn that’s coming on we’re closer to the win
No Legion vigilantes, no scabs anymore
We’ll win ourselves a union town this year of ‘34

1934 Strike/Cooleys Reel/Congress Reel

Johnny is the eternal soldier in the folk music tradition. Johnny goes marching home again to our hurrahs. John is a son, tall and thin, with a leg for every limb, who loses his legs to a cannonball. Johnny comes back an armless, boneless, chickenless egg, and poor Johnny, we hardly knew ya. In every war, Johnny gets his gun, and Johnny comes marching home.

I wrote Johnny Come Home in 2013- 12 years into the American occupation of Afghanistan and 8 years before it would end. The song isn't a finger-pointer; at least not at the troops. Afghanistan and Iraq are my generation's Vietnam, though in Vietnam the troops were largely conscripts and here were volunteers- though many caught in the poverty draft, the wave of angry patriotism after 9/11, the lies and promises of the recruiters. The song is about weariness, about losing hope and faith in an endless war, and no longer trusting the commanders and their plans. It is a song about futility.

I follow the ballad with a performance of Turlough O'Carolan's Sí Beag, Sí Mór, an air about a war between the fey who live on a small hill and those on a larger hill.
lyrics
D G D
Now Johnny old friend, you ain’t wrote in too long
D A D; A
Or if you did, nothing from you’d come through
D G D
Did you get the last package the boys and I sent
D A D; A
To you and the rest of your crew?
A G D
By Christ you and I weren’t yet middle school boys
D G A
Back when the long war began
D G D
Now Johnny come home from the Hindu Kush
D A D; G A
And the red hills of Afghanistan

I remember the day when you first flew away
How you looked like a prince among men
And the lines round your eyes in the time you came back
Before you get called up again
And we watched you all fly off into the sky
To the pride and the pomp of the band
Now Johnny, come home from the Hindu Kush
And the red hills of Afghanistan

The generals say that it’s all going well
Train the locals to fight once you’re gone
But ain’t it the same they were saying back then
When your dad took the boat from Saigon?
Still the papers all say you’ll be out any day
If it all goes according to plan
Now Johnny, come home from the Hindu Kush
And the red hills of Afghanistan

And the dust and the rock tumble under your boots
Where the Britons and the Russians have bled
And echo the walls of the Khyber pass
That we’ve marked with our living and dead
Since Eliphston’s army fell at Gandamak
They’ve been held to by no foreign hand
So Johnny come home from the Hindu Kush
And the red hills of Afghanistan

(optional verse, omitted in recording)
It’s a deadly Great Game that nobody wins
And the pieces are blood, tears, and bones
And the people here left, to harvest the storm
From the wind that the players had sown
Half a century of war, and how many more,
Could anyone ask them to stand?
Johnny come home, from the Hindu Kush
And the red hills of Afghanistan

Now the spring has come in, and the girls are out,
And they’re taking the nights on the town
But we can’t have a song and we can’t raise a glass
without our boy Johnny around
It’s too long you’ve wandered around Salang and Spin Gar
And the long road around Lataband
So Johnny come home from the Kindu Kush
And the red hills of Afghanistan

Johnny Come Home/Si Beag Si Mor

The P9 Strike completes the first three songs of the album, telling the story of how, while the Farm Crisis and Rust Belting processes were going on, corporate attacks by labor- enabled and abetted by entrenched bureaucracies in many of our unions- defeated workers' attempts to fight back and save some of post-WW2 social contract that had been struck between management and labor. The 1980s were a time of capitalist counter-attack against workers' gains; the end of the era of labor peace. Since then, capitalists have been advancing a steady class war against us.

The workers at Local P9 of the UFCW in Austin MN worked at the slaughterhouses of Hormel. The town had a history of radical unionism, stretching back to the Independent Union of All Workers, a local remnant/breakaway of the IWW that had organized towns in southern Minnesota wall-to-wall, until the intervention of the Farmer-Labor Party in a major strike in Albert Lea broke up the IUAW and divided their members among different AFL unions.

By the 1980s, the workers in Austin were ready to strike against a two-tier system that screwed over newer workers by imposing most of the concessions in bargaining onto them. They were also rebelling against unsafe line speeds that left workers maimed. When...  more
lyrics
Bm D
Came back to Austin after the war, been on the line since ‘74,
A Bm
working on the killing floor, to make Hormel its spam
Every year the line gets quicker, dollar’s cheaper, talk gets slicker
Some guys numb themselves with liquor, or learn not to give a damn
Hormel always says they’re squeezed, and the contract’s not a charity
They’re paying half your wage at IBD, and we’re steady losing ground
They wants cuts, so the bureaucrats dump it on the new hire’s backs
Sign or we’ll give your plant the sack, and gut this company town

Chorus
G D
Hard knocks on the killing floor taught us how to swing
A Bm
We ain’t beat even when we’re beaten down
And you best not pull your punches when you’re comin’ for the king
and you’re fighting for your life in a company town

The new plant was a slaughterhouse, for the pigs and workers both,
Contract gave us no way out, but hit them in the papers
and put their dirty flows of cash, in the magnifying glass,
Til the contract day was passed, and we took back our labor
On the day we stopped their line, they moved the slaughter and assigned
The other locals overtime, to scab against their brothers
If we let them do it, then they’ve won- we have to shut it down as one
But national said we’d go alone, no calling in the others

Chorus

When they brought the scabs, that winter day, we blocked them at the factory gate
And it took more cops to clear the way, then they had in the whole station
So Perpich played his favorite card, calling in the National Guard
and you have to fight back twice as hard, when you’re under occupation
We hit the road to spread the strain, up and down the Hormel chain
And other towns joined the campaign, even if it meant the black list
A strike’s a race to see who’ll last, between your belly and the boss’s cash
But the checks came in for food and gas, to get the kids their breakfast

Chorus

March stormed in with the picket clash, and the Austin streets were choked in gas
But cops and soldiers couldn’t smash, the spirit of P-9
But the national union bent the knee, to get peace with the company
Put the local into trusteeship, to bust our picket line
They put the scabs in the union hall, even stripped our mural off the wall,
And when the end of the strike was called, sold out a generation
Now old King Pork still wears the crown, to beat the packing worker down
It’s hard times in a company town, hard times in a boss’s nation

Chorus

As the first track told about the Farm Crisis, the second track of Rust Belt Ballads explores the process of industrial decline- in this case, of quarry workers' jobs and the identity that came with it. The broad strokes of this song are familiar to people across the Rust Belt; a town was once defined by its core industry, but that industry is now gone or changed beyond recognition.

In Saint Cloud, there is still quarrying. Our jobs didn't get outsourced- granite deposits are not as easy to move as machining tools. But we did take much of the most desirable stone already, causing companies to source more from other sites, and our industry did mechanize, replacing vast teams of workers with a smaller number of equipment operators. Similar processes are among the main causes of job losses in other extractive industries, like coal mining or logging, since the mid-1900s.

I grew up swimming in the old quarry pits of St Cloud.
lyrics
C am
Where the Mississippi Water rolls along to meet the Sauk
Dm F G
And the river bank slopes down over the gray and rosy rock
C Am
Granite City said the sign; granite was the prison wall
Dm F G C
But I scarcely met a quarryman in the city there at all

Chorus:
F C Am
Now the red and broken stone lies along the railroad tracks
Dm F G
The quarry days are gone, boys, they’re never coming back
C Am
Still the pulley gives a groan and the engine gives a roar
Dm F G C
But scarce a soul quarries stone in granite city anymore

Oh the ringing and the blasting used to hammer through the day
Where the men went down into the pits to haul the stone away
And there were barges on the river and the train tracks that led
To the builders in the city hauling off the St Cloud red

Chorus

But that was long ago, and time has rolled along
The best stone’s all been taken, the industry’s moved on
And what we’ve got left here, it isn’t like back then
They’ve got new machines to do the work of fifty men

Chorus

Now the drag lines and conveyers rise up high above the scree
The engineers here working for the Lockheed company
And the big box and the strip mall sprout like weeds out of the ground
The pits are all just swimming holes on the outskirts of town

Granite City

Cross of Gold is a reflection on the Farm Crisis and its aftermath. After the "get big or get out" policies of Butz's administration under Ronald Reagan, the small farmers of the US were caught in a perfect trap of high debt and low prices. American agriculture has always suffered from crises of overproduction since the settlers colonized the prairies and cut much of the forests, and turned once-rich, biodiverse lands into vast swaths of crops planted in monocultures.

The song reflects on the sacrifice of blood to the growing of corn- a tale which European colonizers told about the indigenous people as part of their justification for taking this continent. Yet, it is the cross of Gold which we live under, which demands blood sacrifice. 


D
That combine is a war machine, the widest yet I ever seen
A Bm
said get big or get out, they’re weren’t lying
G D
plant to harvest, life is filled with making ends meet at the mill
D A
and gettin’ out is just the same as dyin’
D
trawling fields like a golden sea, fish for corn or subsidies
A Bm
Fed into the silos by the tracks
G D
keep it going day by day, that river cuts the land away
D A
the rain digs out the soil deep and black
A G D
As long as the levees hold it back
Bm G D
And my father, said you’ve got two hands that you’re dealt
Bm D A
One you give freely when a neighbor falls behind
Bm G
And the other your hold pressed like a secret to your chest
D Bm
So when the plant was out he never crossed the line
D A D
Though said what’s yours is yours and mine is mine

My great grandpa was a refugee when he came from the old country
The King’s police were barking at his heels
In the city or on the land, either way you’re living by your hands
Either way the rich man finds a way to steal
The cavalry corp’s killing floor, stolen in the Indian war
The arrowheads still come up with the plow
he built the cabin out of sod and a rugged cross to a murdered god
To bless the crop, the sweat from off his brow
But you get nothing without more blood anyhow
God was a carpenter, built mangers for the shepherds.
He was a shepherd, trying to lead his flock to fold
But now the Romans own the rails, and these prices are the nails
And they crucify us on a cross of gold
They crucify us on a cross of Gold

The quarter’s on the auction block, some man buys land he’ll never walk
Another farm is fallen through the cracks
Boom to boom and bust to bust, everyone does as they must
Anything you’re given can be taken back
You each grow more, the grain gets cheaper, costs get higher, debts get steeper
Each auction is a player quit the game
The kids look through us and their sights are trained onto the city lights
Like a moth looks past the night into the flame
But this life’s already burned, so who’s to blame?
And the grass whispers the memories of a prairie
And the glass offers confessions from the rye
Waiting for the sun to set but it hasn’t got there yet
Watch it sinking in the corn fields like the price
The blood, God knows, has been the sacrifice

Cross Of Gold

A translation of Il Galeone by Belgrado Pedrini, anarchist, antifascist, and poet. 

Am 
Our backs are sore, bent over the oar
E Am 
Down in the guts of the galley
Dm Am 
With shrinking thighs and sinking eyes, 
E Am 
While death ticks away at his tally

Up on the deck, the sun reflects 
The waves like a painter’s dreaming
But down below, the lanter’s glow-
The whip and the driver screaming

Salt fish and mold, this reeking hold 
No song but the oars we’re swinging
Faces gaunt, we moan and haunt
The ship with our shackles clinging 

The moonlight over the ocean 
Like a prow through the night is cleaving
But night with its tired devotion
Our burying shrouds is weaving

Let every slave be awoken, 
Asleep at the ore they’re bound to
And pull ‘till our chains are broken
Those chains that in sorrow drowned you

Is this all you’ll have, you galley slave, 
Condemned to rowing, rowing
Better to sink ourselves under the waves
And rest in the waters flowing 

Take up your oars and steer a course
To the rocks where the gale is smashing 
And charging we’ll fly the red and black high
To dance in the storm winds laughing 

Then over the side, we’ll drift in the tide
Free of our pains and longings
But someday there may break over the waves
anarchy’s jubilant dawning

To arms, fellow workers, to battle- 
The seas are clinging and rising
The thunder of guns, flashing bright as the sun 
Lights the world with each uprising
 
To arms fellow workers, to battle!
Cast down the kings from their station
We swear we will not live as chattel-
Death or our liberation!

The Galley

A ballad from my writing file, "Solarpunk Songs", which is split into two categories: Songs about the ecological and social general crisis, and songs about an eco-syndicalist, communalist, social anarchist future.

I was inspired to write this song by reading an article on the threats facing the Irish Hare, and the fact that the hare lived in Ireland before the retreat of the glaciers in the last ice age- longer, then, even than the mythical peoples of the Book of Invasions and earlier than the first known humans on the island. 

Information on the Irish Hare's preservation can be found here- 
https://hare-preservation-trust.com/

lyrics and chords (this rendition was played down a whole step, in Dm, on a DADGAD tuned guitar, a bodhran, and a C whistle, recorded on the Soundtrap website with a Yeti mic)

Em  D G D
We’ve been run to ground by hawk or by hound, and paid the reward in our blood
Em D Em D Em 
In valley or bog we’ve slipped from the dog, and made away into the wood
G D Em Bm
We’ve sheltered our den in the high mountain glen and traveled the valleys so wide
Em D Bm Em D Em 
No gun and no snare can turn back the hare that runs on the mountain side

We ran in the ice and we ran in the snow, and the winter that never saw spring
That lay on the moors, more lifetimes ago, than the bards had the language to sing
Along the salt sea we ran wild and free, the first that it turned on the tide
And slept in the roots of the first of the trees, that grew on the mountainside 

We were long before Balor of the one eye, long before Brigid and fire, 
And long before Oisin’s arrow let fly and hobbled the queen of the briar 
But now the old ways are passed for this ilk, now they would butcher your hide
They give us the blame for souring the milk, when they graze on the mountainside  

They’ve hewn the hazel and hewn the oak and carried them down the sea,  
The great iron wagons turn over the fields where once that we used to run free
And higher and higher up over the hills, the wagons breathe smoke as they ride, 
Until there’s nowhere that’s left for the hare to run on the mountainside

Complaint Of The Irish Hare (Demo 1)

Oceangate Titan, to the tune of The Ship Titanic
Oh they built Oceangate Titan to dive the ocean blue
And they thought they built a ship that the water couldn’t go through
But the Deep One’s mighty hand said they’d never reach dry land
Chorus: We were glad when the great sub went down
It was rad (ha ha ha!) so rad (ho ho ho!) it was rad when they great sub went down 
To the bottom of the sea
(They sunk like a rock, the investors tanked their stocks)
It was rad when the great sub went down

They headed off from Newfoundland, four hundred miles from shore
Their bank accounts were rich but their common sense was poor
They dived Titanic’s tomb, searching for ironic doom
It was rad when the great sub went down…

The bolts began to pop from the pressure of the sea
And the squid struck up with Near My God to Thee
Then they all were vaporized when the water crushed the sides
It was rad when the great sub went down…

They exploded in reverse, just as happened to the Kursk
The navy heard a pop and we all assumed the worst 
The walls closed like a fist and turned the crew into a mist 
It was rad when the great sub went down…

Stockton Rush has been crushed and in hindsight it was clear
That perhaps he should have hired a naval engineer
Now he makes a tasty dish for all the eyeless benthic fish 
It was rad when the great sub went down…

Some may think it’s disrespectful, some may think it’s in poor taste
To sing of these explorers who got made into a paste
But listen one more verse, I’ll tell you something worse-
It was rad when the great sub went down…

While the world searched for the Titan, off Greece there was a boat
Which got capsized, pulling on a coast guard rope
When that fishing boat went down, refugees in hundreds drowned
It was sad when the migrant boat went down
It was sad (damn right!) actually rad (fucking murder!) we were sad when they migrant boat went down to the bottom of the sea
(They sent thoughts and prayers but nobody seemed to care)
It was sad when that migrant boat went down
But it was rad…

Oceangate Titan

Another song in progress for the translation project, this is a version of Mayn Ruh Platz in english that tries to be a bit more emotional in the vocal delivery, in line with the Yiddish vocal tradition's handling of grief in song

My Resting Place Demo 3 (steel string, emotional)

First demo of "Milford Mine", written after the 100th anniversary of the disaster and recorded for the 101st anniversary. D Dorian. DADGAD guitar, bodhran, shruti box, fiddle, and tambourine. Lyrics based off of the story of survivor Frank Hrvatin Jr. 

Note: In this song, I sing that 41 miners went down and 7 survived. This is false. 41 miners of the 48 miners in the shaft, drowned, with 7 survivors. Future recordings will correct this error, and I apologize for this error, especially to the descendants. The lyrics have been corrected, and a future recording will reflect that. 

https://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-history/2013/02/milford-mine-disaster-1924-save-your-breath-and-start-climbing/


Dm C Dm C
I was scarce more than a child, When I left school days behind 
Dm C F C Dm C Dm 
Digging for the iron ore down in the Milford Mine 
Dm C Dm C
With my father Frank Hrvatin, who gave to me his name 
D C F C Dm 
For we were raised with a pick and shovel for a children’s game
Gm Dm 
we were weaned on slate and taconite, and toothed on manganese 
Gm A5
When I a carried a man’s burden, when I was just 15 
Dm C Dm C
For a poor boy’s raised for working, no time for tender years
Dm C F C Dm C Dm 
And the mine cares for you just like any piece of gear


Chorus
Gm Dm 
Lord keep the ones who go below, and bring them up again 
Gm A
Every time you’re in the mine, you’re in the Lion’s Den 
Dm C F C Dm 
The hand of God it giveth, and then it takes away 
Dm F C Dm 
And only He can know the hour of your judgment day 

I was working down in Milford, two hundred feet we’re down
The stake was near to Foley Lake, just north of Crosby town
A dozen different tongues workin' on the inland shore
Iron to re-arm to armies, since the World War
I worked next to Harry Hosford, on that February day
When somewhere on the eastern end, the tunnel walls gave way
First a rumble in the rocks, and I still can hear that sound 
 the rushing of the waters, as the lake poured down

Chorus 


We had a hundred ways to drown, and to escape was only one
Two hundred feet to climb, up into the air and sun, 
As we pulled out of the waters, we were running out of time
A man above hung on the ladder, numb from the climb
The flood was rising after us, the walls were getting tight 
I put his legs onto my shoulders and I pushed him towards the light
And as soon as we had finished with the devil’s murderin’ race,  
I pulled Hosford from the shaft, the water to his waist

Chorus  

There went below that morning, forty eight good men
By 4 o’clock, just seven of us made it out again 
and I couldn’t thank the lord with the ones who we had saved 
For the water in the mine now marked my father’s grave 
At 15 I filled his boots, though I still had much to grow
In this village of the widows of the men I used to know
Mining killed my old man in the days when I was young, 
And now I’m old it steals the breath from out my lungs

Chorus 

Nine months their bodies laid below, but once the dig was done
That mine went back in motion, to feed a world hungry for guns 
And they let bygones be bygones, and said no one’s to blame
Sometimes you win or lose, to them it’s just a game
Every tunnel dug below the lake was tightening the noose
But it’s money pays the lawyers, and it’s lawyers write the truth 
How many men kept silent, watching greed gamble with death
And paid for our silence with our very breath?

Chorus

Milford Mine (demo 1)

Strike Song of the Year 2025, selected in (and written for) the general strike song contest put on by Labor Notes and the Pittsburgh Labor Choir. Teach-in at 11 AM Central Time, April 2025, online. 

The song is written to be easy for people to pick up and sing- so the crowd can easily sing "Hold fast! All together- hold the line!" in call-and-response, and also sing the chorus.

I intentionally recycle some lines and motifs from other union songs of mine, to feed those pieces into this general strike anthem. This includes the "Hold the Line" motif that now has appeared in two versions of "Holding the Line", and in Jessica's song of the same name. "Put your tools down and walk out" is from the Big 3 Auto Strike song, and "fire in your belly and iron in your spine" is from the Marathon Strike Song. Several other lines reference revolutionary quotes from Durruti's "New world in our hearts" to Connolly's "We demand only the earth". 

Picture is "The Picket Line" by Max Ginsberg

Lyrics and chords

Am Dm E
People rise up, people shout- put your tools down and walk out
E Am
Hold fast! All together, hold the line!
Am Dm E
Every worker in this land, strike together hand in hand 
G Dm E
Hold fast! All together, hold the line!

Chorus
Am 
Hold the line! Hold the line! 
Dm E
Hold it for the future, yours and mine-
Am Dm E
With a fire in your belly, and iron in your spine!
E Am
Hold fast! All together, hold the line!

Cross our arms and plant our feet, and we’ve got the system beat 
Not a single wheel will turn, ‘til we’ve taken what we’ve earned

King Don can build his wall, but the curtain always falls 
Soon the first will be the last, and we’ll march out of the past

This old world has come apart, there’s a new one in our hearts
Workers know what we are worth- we demand only the earth

Hold Fast! (Hold the Line)

A first demo of our in-progress duet version of My Resting Place, or Mayn Ruh Platz, a mourning song for the workers killed or whose lives were toiled away in exploitation in sweatshops and factories. It is most associated with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, in which 146 workers, mostly women, were murdered by the capitalist class, locked inside their factory as a fire, caused by the negligent and unsafe work conditions, consumed the building and their mortal lives. Dozens of the workers jumped or fell to their deaths, forced out of the windows by the intense heat and smoke. We dedicate this song to all the workers who have perished or spent their lives toiling, in the textile industry. 

My Resting Place (Duet)

A second demo of our in-progress duet version of My Resting Place, or Mayn Ruh Platz, a mourning song for the workers killed or whose lives were toiled away in exploitation in sweatshops and factories. It is most associated with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, in which 146 workers, mostly women, were murdered by the capitalist class, locked inside their factory as a fire, caused by the negligent and unsafe work conditions, consumed the building and their mortal lives. Dozens of the workers jumped or fell to their deaths, forced out of the windows by the intense heat and smoke. We dedicate this song to all the workers who have perished or spent their lives toiling, in the textile industry.

This demo includes an acoustic bass guitar and a mandolin. 


Resting Place Duet (Fuller Arrangement)

A demo of Bread and Roses in D, for arrangement work for the upcoming album, Mother Anarchy

Bread and Roses D Demo

World imperialism encircles and threatens to devour Ukraine, as it is caught between Russian tanks and American banks- the western power now more overtly than ever demanding the Ukrainians sell their future and natural wealth to American corporations in exchange for the military aid to stave off the Russian imperialist invasion. Meanwhile, far from liberating Ukraine from the grasp of western companies, Putin's invasion now features his government offering up captured resources to the US as well, to incentivize Washington to abandon Ukraine and fully betray the Budapest Memorandum. 

In the end, the ruling classes in Moscow and Washington alike, benefit as each power threatens the nations that lie between and on the peripheries of their spheres of influence. As one empire threatens a country, it puts that country in a state of crisis, in which the rival empire can extract huge material concessions in exchange for its support. In this way, the inter-imperialist competition between Russia and the USA in fact enriches capitalist interests in both camps, while driving austerity to welfare, more money for the arms industry, and wading through oceans of the blood of working people. 

End the invasion and occupation. Resist austerity done "to fund defense". Resist the global slide into strongman governments as neoliberalism rots away. Make the oligarchs of all sides pay the costs of the war. Oppose all campaigns of aggression by all the great powers, from Ukraine to Gaza. 

Am G Am 
Well it’s a real nice country that you got for yourself, 
Dm E Am 
Shame if something happened to it
Am G Am 
And it’s a real tough neighborhood you found yourself in
Dm E
You’d be to blame if your cities got hit 
C G
But me and my associates can keep you safe from most of it 
F E
We only want a big ol’ slice 
Am G Am
We got the cards that you lack, but don’t call it a racket 
E Am 
‘Cause everybody pays the price 

So you’re facin’ invasion, maybe colonization, 
And their army’s grabbin’ at your eggs
And they’ll squeeze and squeeze until you’re on your knees 
Before you die they wanna hear you beg 
But when the war’s all done, you’ll pay us back for the guns, 
And kneel down to us instead, 
Pass investor-friendly policies, don’t worry ‘bout equality 
You’ll be equal when you’re dead 

Here’s a treaty for you, no time to think it through-
The barbarians are at your gate
And it’s the same deal they gave to the ones we invaded 
And all the post-colonial states
You don’t wanna be a moocher, so you’ll sell us your future, 
Before the goons put on the hurt 
And you’ll thank us for the trouble, or else you’ll get double
Crossed- our treaties ain’t worth dirt. 

We really owe it to the enemy, don’t mean it sentimentally, 
investors ought to drink their health
‘Cause when their bombs were detonated then the leverage was created
to really grab your national wealth 
Now we bargain with impunity, and seize the opportunity 
You’d never have agreed before 
we’ll liberate your mines, on either side of the line 
And take ‘em as the spoils of war 

Yeah it’s a real tough riddle when you’re caught in the middle 
Of a rock and a cold, hard place 
But give us your ports and your oil of course
and we’ll keep the robbers in their place
There’s a new rising order and it’s coming cross the border
With its death squads, drones, and tanks 
We’ll save you from the criminals, just hand over your minerals 
And sign ‘em over to our banks 

Outro:
Dm Am 
We’ll call of your natural resources collateral, 
Dm E
We really think it’s only fair-
Am G C
You’d better tell us thanks, ‘cause by tanks or by banks
E Am 
The lion always gets his share

Imperialist Racket Blues

In memory of the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus and all the people at the edge of Rome who fought to put the beast down. May we put down Empire's newest iterations and all the systems it has planted across the world. We are living in a social order that is actively devouring our planet and its peoples, for the purpose of accumulating ever greater, pointless opulence for the ruling class.  

D G D
Here’s to you who built your empire on a cornerstone of bones 
A D A
And who cut our native land across with walls of spears and stones 
D G D
With your forts to hold the forest and your bases for the mines 
A G D A
And who divy up the spoils with machine guns drawing lines 
Bm A G D Bm 
And you hold the lines with bombers, border checkpoints, and police 
G A D
Here’s to you who make a desert and call it peace

Here’s to you who had the rivers dammed and had the marshes drained, 
You who ordered up the levees, cut the river from the plains 
You who clear cut all the forests and mined out all the hills
Who who fed the wasted wilderness to factories and mills
You who cut down the green valleys and covered them in chrome
Here’s to you who make a cancer and call it home

Here’s to you who sell your people to a prison called a trust 
And who squeeze the blood from labor and then toss away the husk 
So the profit that I make you is the measure of my worth 
Born to sell myself back to you back to you for my place upon the earth 
And every day I sell myself there’s less of me to sell-
Here’s to you who make a ruin and call it wealth

Here’s to you who keep the rabble down and worthy ones above 
And who wrap the iron fist inside a bloody satin glove 
You whose thousand eyes pathologize each deviance and flaw
And who push us into life within the boundaries of the law
You make free men into prisoners or else a deportee
Here’s to you who make a prison and call us free 

Here's To You

It's the story of my great grand-uncle, Dan Hyland, who joined the Marines to serve in the First World War, and fought in that battle, which was formative to the identity and history of the Corps. He was caught near an exploding German shell, and left the Belleau Woods full of shrapnel embedded in his flesh, his service over, to spend the rest of his life in pain. When he arrived in America, he found that his beloved sister had died in the Spanish Flu epidemic.

Dan was emotionally devastated, and spent the rest of his life in a lonely existence, self medicating for his pain with liquor and living with family. He never married or had a family. He would emerge from his room, at times, like a ghost in the eyes of his late sister's grandchildren.

Throughout his life, I have been told, Dan's body would expel small amounts of shrapnel from Belleau Woods. Every once in a while, a shard or little pellet of metal would come working towards the surface from deep in his tissues, pushed up towards the skin. He learned, over time, to wait for them to get close enough, and then he would be able to remove them in a way that was less painful to him. 

Dan Hyland carried immense pain- emotional, moral, and physical- around as a result of his fighting on behalf of states that threw them into the trenches. The government offered him the abstract mythologies of nationalism, while pursuing concrete financial and institutional interests. Many people today carry those same wounds, for those same reasons fighting on behalf of those same interests. Substantially more US veterans have died by suicide than by enemy action during the whole "global war on terror". Addiction is common among veterans. These, among other things, are similarities veterans have with a number of blue collar professions, such as construction and transportation workers (my two main professions so far). 

G C G
My uncle the marine opened a bottle
G C D
every night to help the evening pass
G D Am Em
And to wash down and all the pain and all the dead men in his brain,
G D Em
He always had rye whiskey in his glass
and my uncle the marine was ever faithful
He always kept the nation is his prayers
and he joined up in the corps, for the War to End All Wars
To leave and serve his country over there,

Chorus:
C G
Some men come back with something in them broken
C D
And some just wonder what it was all for
G D Am Em
But my uncle played his part, and he kept it near his heart-
G D Em
the metal that he brought back from the war

They charged the Huns and rooted out their trenches
Through the mustard gas and razor wire,
‘Til a Krupp gun’s bursting shell, like a beast let out of hell
Left its shrapnel in a storm of steel and fire 
So my father came back from the war a hero,
A devil dog, one of the country’s best
And for taking all that metal in his body,
They pinned a shiny medal on his chest

Chorus

My uncle lived to see his sister's children,
put the trenches in the past for good,
But year on year, again, it’d come up through the skin-
The steel he carried out of Belleau Woods
He’s start to feel it ache somewhere inside him,
Under the skin, on its way to leaving
So some days as if by chance, the wounds he took in France
Through the many years of peace, still were bleeding

Chorus

Some men go off to war and come back heroes
some fall unsung beneath the butcher’s knife
Some fight for every breath when they’re wrestling with death
and carry it inside them all their life
and there ain’t no use pretending you don’t feel it
or salvation in the bottle or the gun
and the shrapnel’s in no race, it works out on its own pace
and you’ve got to take the bleeding as it comes

Chorus


Belleau Woods

First demo of a music sample for a labor podcast. Further work on this song, including the full song, will be out in the coming days. 

Blue Collar and Barrel Aged Instrumental Clip 1

Normally performed as a complex polyphonic arrangement, my arrangement as the Russian-language version of Koloda Duda is a dirge, intentionally deviating from the eastern Slavic folk music traditions, in line with my accented voice- as a statement of an outsider to the region. The song is sometimes described as a Ukrainian song and sometimes as a song of the Don Cossacks. It comes from the lands now being torn apart by the war. 

The traditional ballad, which is where Pete Seeger got the concept for "Where Have All the Flowers Gone", explores a theme of ongoing loss- as each thing is named, it is in the next breath gone: the horse with the gate, the gate with the water, the swimming geese gone to the reeds, which were picked by the girls, who have gone with the husbands, who have been swallowed in that final, all consuming destination: war. There is none of the circulatory of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" in the original Cossack ballad- war does not go and disappear like the horse and the geese and the girls. It does not become flowers like the graveyards of the young men in Seeger's work. It is the black pit into which life disappears. 

This is a statement of mourning for the loss of lives, of friends and family, of homes. It is in mourning of the loss of freedom under repression, the loss of opportunities be with loved ones as borders grow tighter, the loss of being able to imagine a brighter future in a country that has hardened into tyranny. It is mourning of a machine that takes young men and turns them into accomplices in the atrocity that is war, that mutilates the soul, mind, and body alike. It is mourning of the victims of that war machine. 

I was raised on the music of resistance to the Vietnam War- the music of my parent's generation. I knew Where Have All the Flowers gone from a very young age. As I grew up, I had to sing against the Afghan and Iraq invasions by America, both in protest of the invasion and the brutality against the invaded and occupied people, and in mourning for the young men being sent off to die in wars of conquest. As I met my partner and comrade, I  began studying Russian, first as a romantic gesture. I included in my arrangement, instruments given to me as wedding gifts or as gifts from my Russian in-laws, and returned to the source of the song I grew up with.

This version is in A Dorian or E minor, played on a G pennywhistle, a low D whistle counterpoint, a high D whistle on fills, a bodhran, a treschotka from Nizhny Novgorod, a Siberian jaw harp, and a shruti box set to A. 

The lyrics, translated, are: 

"Koloda-duda, where have you been? 
I have been watching the horse- watching the horse. 
and where is the horse? 
By the gate. 
Where is the gate? 
The water has washed it away. 
Where are the geese? 
They have gone to the reeds.
- and where are the reeds? 
The girls have gathered them. 
Where are the girls? 
They have gone, with their husbands. 
and where are those cossacks? 
They have all gone to war. "

Нет войне.

Koloda Duda (Колода-дуда)

Not a drinking song so much as a sobriety song, "Whiskey Tastes Like Happiness" is about being stuck in addiction as someone who knows full well the problem they're struggling with- the addict who is not in denial. 

Due to previous experiences posting songs about alcoholism, depression, or other troubling topics, I want to be very clear that this is not a confessional or cry for help. Please do not call or message me with concern. 

Guitar, vocals, and harmonica. Painting by Jean Curtis. 
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Jean-Curtis/A86470DEFFC3DBDD/Biography

Whiskey Tastes Like Happiness

In honor of retirees who run union food shelves; older women doing anti-repression fundraising; wheelchair users who fly drones to keep an eye on the police during marches; everyone who finds a way to struggle according to their ability. There are so many roles that need to be filled in a revolution, and every role that moves the struggle forward and tends to one another is worthy of respect. 

This was song was begun by the attendees of the Circle of Song, chiefly a certain friend who brought the burritos. Thanks, Debra Grouse!

Guitar, mandolin, tambourine, and pennywhistle. 

G C G 
I can’t march but I can feed the army, 
C D
‘Cause the front line’s got to eat 
G C G 
I can’t march but i can feed the army
G D G
And I’ll keep ‘em on their feet 

Chorus:
C G D Em 
We’re fighting for a new world, there’s always work to do  
G C G (G D G) 
So come on the table, we saved a seat for you 
(x2)

I can’t fight, but I can tend the wounded 
and help them bear the pain 
I can’t fight, but I can tend the wounded 
and keep life in their veins 


Chorus 

I can’t work, but I can move a mountain 
when I was raise my voice and sing 
I can’t work, but I can move a mountain 
And topple any king 

Chorus

I Can't March But I Can Feed the Army

Full version of the song, written for a podcast by Carpenters union organizers. 

The song is in E minor, featuring a DADGAD tuned guitar, G harmonica, bodhran, tambourine, treschotka, mandolin, jaw harp, and vocals. 

Steels toes walkin’
Bags on and clocked in 
Every day locked in the company’s cage 
The fire don’t kill us 
It only distills us
The shot is blue collar and barrel aged 

Bosses want clawbacks- 
And stalk like a wolf pack
Eye on the contract and hand on your wage 
Pressure is rising, 
We’re done compromising 
We’re rising blue collar and barrel aged 

Down to wire, 
Contract’s expired 
Head full of fire and a fistful of rage 
Holding the picket 
In thinnest and thickest 
We’re strong, Blue collar, and barrel aged

Blue Collar and Barrel Aged

A song in development, for this summer's 1935 90th anniversary commemorations of the Flour City Ornamental Ironworks strike. This is meant to be sung by a choir. Pending review it may be edited, re-arranged, or rewritten entirely. Guitar, vocals, and banjo- very minimalist arrangement for this early draft. 

"Flour City Iron Works Strike"

Em G B7 (Gm B D7)
The year was 1935 the time had come to rise 
G D Em  (B F Gm)
At Flour City Iron Works machinists organized 
G Am Em (B Cm Gm)
And 26 and 26, we held the picket line 
Em D C B7 Em D Em (Gm F E D, Gm F Gm) 
To stand and stop the scabs and cops, with songs and chants and signs 
G D (B F)
We met them with our music, they answered with their gun
Em D C B7 Em D Em (Gm F E D, Gm F Gm)
In blood as cold as steel or gold, their murdering was done 


Chorus: 
G D (B F)
Shame on the name of gun thugs, the cops, and boss’s spies 
Em B7 (Gm D)
There’s 2 men fell at the Hubs of Hell, down over on South Side 
G D (B F)
The strike’s a war just like before - They shot out brothers down 
Em D C B7 Em D Em (Gm F E D, Gm F Gm)
But plants don’t run on clubs and guns. We’ll win a union town

The boss Tetzlaff brought down the lash and bussed in hired goons
To guard the site under the light of the sun or of the moon 
We marched and paced around the place, to battle for our share 
But from inside, where gunmen hide, a shot cut through the air 
The powder reeked, the bullet shrieked, the police roared aloud 
Their volleys fell like rain from hell and cut into the crowd 

Chorus

They murdered Melvin Bjorkland and Eugene Cooper, too, 
And dozens left the Hub of Hell, with gas and buckshot wounds 
We fought all night by siren-light, with stones against their guns 
Held them at bay from alleyways, regroup but never run 
Our cost was paid by break of day and in the morning light 
The bosses caved. Bloody but brave, the people won the strike 

Chorus

1935 Flour City Ironworks Strike

My rewrite of the great Miriam Makeba's song, "Malaika", is written for the ongoing nursing home organizing efforts in Minnesota, where many of the workers are Swahili speakers who know and love the song. These English rewritten lyrics change the song from being about a young man who cannot afford the bride-price for his beloved, to a different kind of alienation: The moral injury suffered by nursing home workers.

In this song, the singer is a CNA making night rounds, trying to placate an upset elder- a common situation in memory care units, such as the one my spouse worked in for several years. Because of the understaffing of the nursing home and the urgency of a call light demanding her attention on another patient, the nurse pleads with the elder to be happy and go to sleep, so she can tend to the other patients. She wants to stay and really make sure the elder is okay, but cannot. She promises that when they win the union, they will demand safe staffing levels, and have enough workers to give the elders the care they deserve. 

The nursing home industry in the United States operates in large part as landlords, charging for the housing and care of elders, as more Americans hand over the reproductive labor of caring for our elders to the senior care industry. Many of the workers in this industry are immigrant women. 

SEIU healthcare has been organizing for several years in Twin Cities areas nursing homes. This song is in solidarity with those workers. The song Malaika was used at the suggestion and request of a worker-organizer in those workplace committees. 

Malaika, nakupenda, Malaika
Malaika, nakupenda, Malaika 
I want to stay here with you a while, 
Just until this fear is gone, 
Oh, my angel, let me see you smile 
Before the call light moves me on, 
Oh, my angel, let me see you smile 
But the call light moves me on, 

Money, oh it always makes me worry
For money- The bosses tell me, hurry
What can I do, just one woman in the company?
Oh, my angel, let me see you smile!
Go to sleep now, Malaika
Oh, my angel, let me see you smile! 
Go to sleep now, Malaika

Little bird, I worry for you, my little bird 
You sing confused, my angel, and your wings are hurt 
I would care for you, like you were my own mother-
Oh, my angel, let me see you smile!
Go to sleep now, Malaika 
Oh, my angel, let me see you smile!
Go to sleep now, Malaika 

Malaika, nakupenda, Malaika
Malaika, nakupenda, Malaika 
We will get together, now, all the workers in the home, 
Win the union and take care of you, 
Rise tomorrow, Malaika 
Malaika, when we win, we'll dance!
Rise tomorrow, Malaika
Rise tomorrow, Malaika 
Rise tomorrow, Malaika


Instrumentation: Nylon stringed guitar (two tracks), ukulele, mandolin, acoustic bass guitar, C pennywhistle, guiro, tambourine, cajon, maracas, and vocals. 

This song may be reworked and re-arranged pending feedback from the workers in the campaign.

Malaika (Nursing Home Workers' Rewrite)

The blacklist in the UK's construction industry was maintained for decades first by the Economic League and then by the Consulting Association, until it was finally uncovered. Maintained through the collaboration of anti-union consultants, the construction industry, the Special Branch of the police, and union bureaucrats, the blacklist listed thousands of construction workers who had been identified as trouble-makers, union militants, activists, communists and anarchists and socialists, or otherwise undesirable to the industry. Simply blowing the whistle on unsafe work conditions could, in some cases, lead to a person ending up on the blacklist. Frozen out of their own industry, blacklisted construction workers lost prosperity, economic security for their families, and in many cases their careers, their marriages, their homes, and their lives. 

This song is dedicated to the survivors of the blacklist, and to those who did not survive. Rest in power, fellow workers. 


D A Bm 
The robins in the yews watched as we carried
G A 
Out of the chapel in the weepin’ rain
D A Bm
The body of our brother, to be buried 
G A D 
By his own hand, and by a system slain
His son was clingin’ tight onto his mother, 
His daughter old enough to see the truth
And his workmates, they all knew it was another 
Life taken by the blacklist in its youth

Chorus 
D A
They took his work, they took his pride, 
Bm G
They tried to break him down inside 
D A Bm G
With the shame of coming home with empty hands, 
They put his family on the dole, 
Took his dreams, but not his soul- 
D A G
He never bowed to be a forgotten man 

His first day in his boots, he stood so proudly 
His hammer flew like lightnin’ in his hand 
And anyone who’d hear, he’s say it loudly
His castles in the skies, and all his plans
but There’s danger every time they cut a corner 
And deaths under the shadow of the knife 
He couldn’t stand to see another mourner 
and blew the whistle standing up for life 

Chorus

The first time that he spoke up, he got fired 
Then always in the cross hairs of the boss
The last on any work gang to be hired 
The first on any job to get laid off 
He’d start a gig but foremen never kept him 
After his first pay day, came the sack 
It broke his life until his woman left him 
He never kept the family in the black 

Chorus 

D A
we found him hanging in the air 
G D 
Up above a toppled chair 
D A Bm 
And an empty bottle of the Yankee Rye 
D A 
Layoff, dole, and then divorce 
G D 
Guess his life had run its course 
Bm D A 
He saw nothing left to do in it but die 

After the ICO’s investigation 
The truth we whispered brought into the light 
They tracked down the Consulting Association 
And found the Blacklist author to indict 
But never went against the great contractors 
The Special Branch or union bureaucrats 
They sacrificed their man, to save the masters 
He did his duty, hunting wild cats 

Chorus


Arrangement: Bouzouki, vocals, bodhran, tenor banjo, fiddle, D pennywhistle, and D harmonica.

The Blacklist

A translation of Quando l'Anarchia Verra, an unabashedly utopian Italian anarchist song, by Sante Ferrini. For my upcoming album, Mother Anarchy. A stripped-down version will be uploaded as well, for my collaborators to use as a demo as we create the final mix. 

Arrangement: Vocals, nylon string guitar, tambourine, bodhran drum, guiro, acoustic bass guitar, mandolin, and low A pennywhistle. 

These chords are a step lower than I am playing; I capo'd 2, turning my G into A. 

G
On the morning when anarchy dawns 
G C
The last of our chains will be broken
C 
The shadow of tyranny gone-
C D
That nightmare from which we’ve awoken! 
G
We’ll join in a circle of hands, 
G C
In struggle, in care, and in labor,
C  
And pull from the gardens we plant, 
C D
The fruits that together we’ll savor

Chorus: 
G C
And from our hearts, the world that we’ve carried 
C D
Will tear apart the tyranny we’ve buried (repeat)

We’ve bent ourselves to the machine,  
But now the machines, they will serve us
They squeezed us for gold and for green, 
But now we will labor with purpose
No borders will keep us apart, 
With soldiers and papers to file, 
the world we bear in our hearts 
Will blossom both tender and wild 

Chorus

So we strike out wherever we can, 
In a war on our own exploitation 
In defense of the commons and land, 
Against those who set nation on nation
The roots that we’ve planted have spread, 
So we’ll sprout up like mushrooms* in season 
We come bearing roses and bread, 
We come bearing passion and reason

Chorus



When Anarchy Dawns

Folk musician, carpenter, public nuisance, rebel worker. Former member of the Wooden Shoe Ramblers. 

Website: https://edoylemusic.com/
Bandcamp: https://emmettdoyle.bandcamp.com/album/rust-belt-ballads
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emmettdoyle
WSR: https://woodenshoeramblers.bandcamp.com/releases

Emmett Doyle

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