A Song by Florence Patton Reece Come all of you good workers Good news to you Ill tell Of how that good old union Has come in here to dwell Chorus Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on? Which side are you on? My daddy was a miner And Im a miners son And Ill stick with the union Till every battles won They say in Harlan County There are no neutrals there Youll either be a union man Or a thug for J.H. Blair Oh, workers can you stand it? Oh, tell me how you can Will you be a lousy scab Or will you be a man? Dont scab for the bosses Dont listen to their lies Us poor folks havent got a chance Unless we organize French Translation (Gwénaël Forestier) Venez vous tous, les bons ouvriers jai de bonnes nouvelles à vous dire! Comment va ce bonne vieux syndicat? Je te dirais quil est là pour durer! Choeur De lequel le côté es tu? De lequel le côté es tu? De lequel le côté es tu? De lequel le côté es tu? Mon papa était un mineur Et je suis le fils dun mineur Je resterai fidèle au syndicat Jusquà ce que chaque bataille soit gagnée Ils disent dans le Comté de Harlan Quil ny a personne de neutre ici Vous, êtes vous un syndicaliste? Ou, vous êtes, un voyou de la bande à J.H. Blair? Oh, comment les ouvriers peuvent-ils vous supporter? Oh, dites-moi comment vous le pouvez? Êtes vous une vieille croûte? Ou serez-vous des hommes? Ne faites pas de boulot pour les patrons Nécoutez pas leurs mensonges Nous les pauvres gens, nous naurons aucune chance Sans que nous nous organisions Notes Pete Seeger in an introduction to Which Side Are You On? on his record Cant You See This Systems Rotten Through And Through says: Maybe the most famous song it was ever my privilege to know was the one written by Mrs Florence Reece. Her husband Sam was an organiser in that bloody strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1932. They got word that the company gun-thugs were out to kill him, and he got out of his house, I think out the back door, just before they arrived. And Mrs Reece said they stuck their guns into the closets, into the beds, even into the piles of dirty linen. One of her two little girls started crying and one of the men said What are you crying for? Were not after you were after your old man After they had gone she felt so outraged she tore a calendar off the wall and on the back of it wrote the words and put them to the tune of an old hard-shelled Baptist hymn tune, although come to think of it the hymn tune used an old English ballad melody ... And her two little girls used to go singing it in the union halls. Many thanks to Gwénaël Forestier for the French translation
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:58:26 +0000
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