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YSA Song
Book
Below is a collection of songs
written or adapted by Youth for Socialist Action members, and/or reprinted from
the 1970s Socialist Songbook of our predecessor organization, the Young
Socialist Alliance, along with a sampling of other leftist songs.
Solidarity Forever
Written by Ralph Chapin, 1915
(Tune of John Brown’s body, Battle Hymn of
the Republic)
When the Union’s inspiration through the
worker’s blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere
beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the
feeble strength of one
But the Union makes us strong!
(Chorus) Solidarity Forever! (3 times)
For the union makes us strong.
Is there aught we hold in common with the
greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom
And would crush us with his might?
Is
there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
(Chorus)
It is we who plowed the prairies; built
the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the workshops;
Endless miles of railroad laid,
Now we stand outcast and starving ‘mid the
wonders we have made;
But the Union makes us strong.
(Chorus)
All the world that’s owned by idle drones
is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations,
Built its skyward stone by stone.
It is ours not to slave in, but to master
and to own,
While the Union makes us strong.
(Chorus)
They have taken untold millions that they
never toiled to earn.
But without our brain and muscle not a
single wheel would turn.
We can break their haughty power; gain our
freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.
(Chorus)
In our hands is placed a power greater
than their hoarded goal,
Greater than the might of atoms, magnified
a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the
ashes of the old.
For the Union makes us strong.
(Chorus)
The Red Flag
Written by James Connell, 1889 (Oh
Christmas Tree)
The workers’ flag is deepest red,
It shroudest oft our martyred dead; but er
their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their life-blood dyed its every fold.
(Chorus) Then
raise the scarlet standard high
Beneath its fold
we’ll live and die,
Though coward’s
flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the
red flag flying here.
Look ‘round the Frenchman loves its blaze,
The sturdy German chants its praise;
In Moscow’s vaults its hymns are sung,
Chicago swells the surging throng.
(Chorus)
It waived above our infant might,
When all ahead seemed dark as night;
It witnessed many a deed and vow,
We will not change its color now.
(Chorus)
It suits today the meek and base,
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place,
To cring beneath the rich man’s frown,
And haul that scared emblem down.
(Chorus)
With heads uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.
America Unbeautiful
(tune: America the beautiful)
Unbeautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided
grain
For strip-minded mountain majesties above
eroded plains
America, America they shed beer cans on
thee
And hid thy pines with billboard signs
From sea to oily sea
Solidaridad Pa’ Siempre
(United farm workers’ version of
“Solidarity Forever”)
Vamos, Vamos campesions, los derechos a
pellar
Con el corazon en alto y con fe en la unidad
Quen la fuerza de las pobres como las olas
del mar
La injusticia va a inundar
(chorus) Solidaridad
pa’ siempre, Solidaridad pa’ siempre,
Solidaridad pa’ siempre
Que viva
neuestra Union
En los campos de las vinas luchan por su
liberad
Todos los trabajodores quieren ya vivir en
paz
Y por eso companeros nos tenesmos que
juntaqr
Con solidaridad
I’ve been voting for the bourgeois
By
Susan Vass adapted by Lucas Dietsche
(Tune: I’ve been working on the railroad)
I’ve been votin’ for the bourgeois parties all my life
I’ve been pledging them allegiance and
they gave me the knife
They sent our sons to Iraq
And made us foot the bill
They froze our wages, so we’ll freeze
their votes
‘Cause I have had my fill
I’ve been voting’ for the bourgeois
parities all my days
Now I see they both oppress us because
oppression pays
There is not a shred of difference
In either one you pick
They just let you choose your poison
Lead or arsenic
I’m not votin’ for the bourgeois parties
one more time
I wont go out ringing doorbells or give
them one more dime
I’m working with the folks that tell us
To vote with our ballots and our feet
Vote Socialist Action to be finally be
free
And join the struggle in the street.
Lena The Commie
(words of Frosty the snowman)
Lyrics by Lucas Dietsche
Lena the Commie,
Not your common Marxist song,
She is a fighter, and she has a red
armband and she attacks the bourgeois.
Lena rips apart the higher class, and
attacks their money schemes,
But sometimes they use the police to break
their strikes and up-risings;
Lena the Commie, not your ordinary girl,
Let the reds all know and she can show
that she hates private property.
It is said that she was thrown in jail and
given quite a time,
She has four scars on her head and she
didn’t do a crime,
Lena the Commie not your ordinary girl
Let the reds all know and she can show
that she hates private property.
Now, when the revolution came, it was
Lena’s hope,
That the working class will win the day
and never let it go!!!
Lena the commie, not your ordinary girl,
Let the reds all know and she can show
that she doesn’t believe in property!!!
This world should be shared equally
(to the tune of “this land is your land”)
Lyrics by Lucas Dietsche
This world is your world,
This world is my world,
To the means of production to the volcanic
eruptions,
To the wetlands and the trees,
To the forests and the seas,
This world is a part of you and me.
Together with our comrades, with our
brothers,
Together with veterans, workers and our
mothers,
Together with love, work, and solidarity.
This world is part of you and me.
Today and tomorrow we fight capitalists,
Who enslaves us wrongly, who think they
are our masters!
We cry revolution to make the world
free---hey!
This world is part of you and me.
This world should be shared equally.
The red flag is still flying along
(tune of
the minstrel boy)
The morning day break came with nothing to
be had.
Four-thousand of their dead in some war,
Of their kind six-million starving in the
streets
and the rich cozy with the wealth they
keep.
(Chorus) the red
flag is still flying along
it will be in
the hands of the vanguard
When the
proletariat is big and strong
It will never
fail the rebellion.
it was noticed the control was in the
hands of the few.
And it was time to take back what was
theres,
To be equal and to ultimately share,
For people like me and you.
(chorus)
The masses will take control of their
lives,
When the time is ripe for revolution,
The army, navy, and marines will fight
To keep hold of big business’ salvation.
(chorus)
So they went on to defend the barricades,
with bricks, clubs and rocks they did wield,
So much, the government had to yield,
For the sake of everlasting sanity.
(Chorus)
From Sounds of Defiance , socialist
songs from the ‘70s 2nd Ed.
and Lucas Dietsche
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