Here’s a playlist for celebrating the working stiff, the majority of Americans. While enjoying your union-sponsored, three day weekend, listen to these classic tracks that commemorate the long struggle for human rights and dignity, and the trials of the everyday Joe and Jill.
- “Se vuol ballare” from The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart). Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, Vienna Philharmonic; Nikolaus Haroncourt, cond.
Figaro is having trouble with his boss the Count Almaviva. “You want to dance, little Count? Fine, but I’ll call the tune,” he sings. - “Joe Hill”, folk ballad, sung by Paul Robeson, on the album Live at Carnegie Hall, 1958.
If there’s an anthem for the American labor movement, this is it. The singer is one of the great basses of the middle 20th Century. For a decade or more, this African-American man living in a segregated country, was one of America’s most popular entertainers. - Ballet Mécanique by George Antheil. London Sinfonietta, Jurgen Hempel, cond., on Ether 2004 (Warp Records).
This fantastic landmark of American modernism, written in the same year as Rhapsody in Blue, is a fierce portrait of the rhythms and repetitiveness in a factory at full tilt. See if you can ride out its 16 minutes of percussive glory. - “Factory” by Bruce Springsteen, from the album Darkness on the Edge of Town.
A classic from a songwriter heavily influenced by folk music legends Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. - “Allentown” by Billy Joel, from the album The Nylon Curtain.
One of the best-known songs about the collapse of the American steel industry. - Peterloo Overture by Malcolm Arnold, Texas A&M Wind Band, Wind Band Masterworks, Vol. 2.
This overture opens with an unmistakeable tribute to the English brass band. But actually, it was written for the 1968 centenary of the Trades Union Congress. It commemorates a famous rally in 1819 for democratic political reform. Local magistrates sent in the Yeomanry and the cavalry and many people were killed and wounded. (That’s the middle of the overture.) The idealistic ending reflects the composer’s conviction that the suffering was not in vain. - “Maria Lando” by Chabuca Granda. Susana Baca, on the album Lamento negro
This ballad is about a servant who works so much that there is no day or night for her. “Maria only works and her work enriches others”. - “There is Power in a Union” by Billy Bragg, on the album Help Save the Youth of America.
A traditional union hymn, orginally by the real Joe Hill, in a rewritten version by contemporary folksinger/ activist Billy Bragg. - Fanfare for the Common Man (Aaron Copland). Boston Pops Orchestra, John Williams, cond.; on the album America: The Dream Goes On.
The common men in this piece are the citizen soldiers who fought in World War II. But the fanfare has come to symbolize the strength that men and women have given to this country through the value of their labor.