Sunday, June 24, 2018

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Peggy Seeger's "Sing About These Hard Times"

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Peggy Seeger's "Sing About These Hard Times"



In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.



SING ABOUT THESE HARD TIMES
words and music and © 2003 Peggy Seeger
administered by harmony music, ltd.


Chorus: Sing about these hard times,
Sing all about these hard old times,
Sing about these hard times
When will the good times roll?

I worked hard, I played my part
That's what I did right from the start
But these hard times are gonna break my heart
When will the good times roll? (chorus)

Life gets harder every year
Those with the least have the most to fear
Those with the most just don't care
When will the good times roll? (chorus)

The big corporations got no home
And the men on the Hill got hearts of stone
They worry my life like a dog with a bone
When will the good times roll? (chorus)

They moved my job to Mexico
Where the children slave and the pay is low
How I'm gonna live I just don't know
When will the good times roll? (chorus)

O, the world is ill divided
Those who work most are the least provided
& When they got a war they want US to fight it
When will the good times roll? (chorus)

Created for an event at the Asheville Arts Museum on March 23, 2003, this song was originally entitled 'Sing about Those Hard Times'. That version dealt with the late 1920s and the Depression because the occasion was a celebration of the work of the great North American artist Ben Shahn (1898-1969). There were rooms and rooms of his paintings, drawing and photographs. I updated the song to the hard times we are going through now and changed Those to These. If you are interested in using folksong tunes as a resource for writing new songs you might take a peek at the song "Down to the River to Pray", popularised in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? There are most definitely resonances between that tune and mine.

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