Work song

“ I tell you there is already a song of labour. It has not got itself expressed and understood but it is in every shop, in every field where men work. In a dim way the men who work are conscious of the song although if you talk of the matter they only laugh. The song is low harsh rhythmical. I tell you it comes out of the very soul of labour. It is akin to the thing that artists understand and that is called form. This McGregor understands something of that. He is the first leader of labour that has understood. ”

“ And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. ”

“ The work-song is a common device in many lowly activities, ranging from those of children at play to those of sailors at the windlass, and undoubtedly serves a useful purpose in guiding, coordinating, and concentrating effort ”

“ Although rhythmic song will not necessarily elicit obvious motor responses in all subjects, the wide-spread use of work songs among groups of people engaged at hard work on land or sea throughout the world is indicative of the value of background rhythm for communal effort. ”

“ The angels of the morning broke into song, the sons of the Elohim, high in the ethereal dwellings among the fountains of light and life, shouted for joy. In poetic vision the writer beholds that work of God and those rejoicing companies; but to himself, as to Job, the question comes—What knows man of the marvellous creative effort which he sees in imagination? It is beyond human range. ”

“ Many work songs, of course, are not really work songs except in the sense that they are sung during work. When the work is such that it does not necessitate continuous rhythmic movements, one song is about as good as another. But rhythmic movements, being especially adapted to song accompaniment, have given rise to a distinct type of work song. Digging, hammering, steel-driving, rowing, and many other kinds of work fall in the rhythmic class. The technique for all of these is practically the same.
Let us take digging as an example, since it is a very common type of Negro labor in the South. ”

“ In poverty, hunger and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of the Shirt!" "Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work—work—work, Till the stars shine through the roof! ”

“ Great will be the workers' power.
An eight-hour day for all employed workers, would put thousands of the unemployed to work.
WE WILL SING ONE SONG.
By Joe Hill.
(Air: "My Old Kentucky Home.")
We will sing one song of the meek and humble slave,
The horn-handed son of the toil,
He's toiling hard from the cradle to the grave,
But his master reaps the profits from his toil.
Then we'll sing one song of the greedy master class,
They're vagrants in broadcloth, indeed,
They live by robbing the ever-toiling mass,
Human blood they spill to satisfy their greed.
CHORUS:
Organize! ”

“ The purpose and plan of work involve external sources and external ends; rhythm is instinctive, and springs from the organic nature of man; it is no invention. The song that one sings while at work is not something fitted to the work, but comes from movements of the body in the specific acts of labor; and this applies not only to the rhythm, but even to the words. ”

“ SOME TYPICAL NEGRO TUNES
We have pointed out again and again the utter futility of trying to describe accurately the singing of a group of Negroes when they are at their best. A group of twenty workers singing, carrying various parts, suiting song to work, and vying with one another for supremacy in variations and innovations—this is a scene which defies musical notation and description. And yet the picture which we have tried to present in this volume would certainly be incomplete without the addition of some of the simple melodies of typical workaday songs. ”

“ As for your song, it rings night and morning, year in, year out, in the ears of men that are born in Wrellisford; at night it is part of their dreams, at morning it is the voice of day, and so it becomes part of their souls. But the song is not beautiful in itself. I take these men with your song in their souls up over the edge of the valley and a long way off beyond, and I am a strong and dusty road up there, and they go with your song in their souls and turn it into music and gladden cities. But nothing is the Work of the World except work for Man. ”

“ In his study Arbeit und Rhythmus Karl Bücher advances the idea that through regular ‘work’ of any kind ‘song’ as an accompaniment is naturally induced. The regularity of the ‘work,’ be it walking, driving a stake, or grinding corn in a hollowed-out stone, supplies one element of music; i. e., rhythm. One element of a tune being present, what more natural than an attempt on the part of the worker to supply the other element and [Pg 7] thus lighten the labor? Especially is this likely to happen if the task require several workers who are obliged to work together, somewhat in unison. ”

“ People who accompany dish cloths and dusters with songs work better!
American negroes have used song to ease their work in the hot sunny fields. They not only sang, but men were hired to sing and act as song leaders in the slave days, to set the pace for workers, for more work was done when the slaves moved to the rhythm of music. In modern factories today, music is used to relieve the drudgery. ”

“ Bücher, all work, when efficient, tends to be rhythmic and each kind of work has its peculiar rhythm. This is especially the case when the labour is carried out in common by a number of people, and the rhythm is embodied in a song, or rhythmic word of command sung by the leader. Innumerable instances will at once occur to everybody--rowing, hauling, marching, sewing, mowing, etc. ”

“ Each one should be asked to do something which the worker he represents might do, whether it be the imitation of movements, an action song, or repeating an appropriate jingle. A delightful entertainment easily grows out of the work from day to day. ”

“ Professor C. Hubert Parry, whose last work, "Job," has been so enthusiastically received and criticised by the musical world, composes according to the nature of the composition on which he is engaged.
"There are a hundred and fifty different kinds of work to be done in composing," he says, "and they vary in accordance with its being a big work like a symphony or an oratorio, or an opera, or a little thing like a song or a pianoforte piece. Then, what one wants may come into one's head when walking or driving, or in bed—anywhere, indeed, but in front of the paper it has to be written on. ”

“ In each of these classes it is readily seen that there is abundance of new material of great value. And yet, after these attempts at classification, there are scores of songs, some the favorites of the present day, some among the most attractive, which appear best as simple work songs, sung as an integral physical part of the Negro’s workaday efforts. ”

“ When the words of the work-songs refer to the action itself, the effect will be strengthened by verbal suggestion. It is true that many of the songs which are sung during the manufacture of weapons and utensils, during boat-building and such-like, are magical in their intention. ”

“ This feature is closely bound up with that more lively bodily and mental activity of totemic culture which is reflected likewise in its use of implements and weapons. Karl Bücher was the first to point out that common labour gives rise to common songs, whose rhythm and melody are determined by the labour. The increasing diversity of the work results in a wider range of content and also in a richer differentiation of forms. Such work-songs are to be found throughout the entire totemic era, whereas, of course, they are lacking in the preceding age, in which common labour scarcely exists. ”

“ There are fragments, pick-and-shovel songs, driving songs, mostly short, which are sung perhaps more often than any others by the group of workers. This chapter will present, first, some of the miscellaneous and more artistic songs that are most difficult to classify except as “just songs to help with work.” Then will follow certain types, corruptions from blues, jazz and minstrel, but sung on any and all occasions, one as well as another, in the kitchen, on the road, in the field, in the alley, in the barber shop, or on the street. ”

“ "His song was only living aloud,
His work, a singing with his hand." ”

“ The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him—why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. ”

“ It would be difficult to find a scene and setting more appealing than this ballad being sung by a group of workingmen in unison, with remarkable harmony, fine voices, inimitable manner. “Doesn’t this singing [53] hinder you in your work?” we asked one of the pick-and-shovel men, just to see what type of reply he would make. With first a slow look of surprise, then a sort of pity for the man who would ask such a question, then a “Lawdy-Lawd-Cap’n” outburst of laughter, “Cap’n dat’s whut makes us work so much better, an’ it nuthin’ else but.” ”

“ Industry, O noble Industry, from thee comes all Happiness,” he remarked that he had been an industrious man all his life, but it had never occurred to him to set industry to music. Notwithstanding his displeasure, he bestowed all his strength upon the work in the most literal sense, for shortly after its completion, he was attacked with a brain-fever from which he suffered torments, and during which his fancies were incessantly occupied with music. ”

“ Stretch'd at her feet upon the grassy plain,
The cheerful labourer raises high the strain;
Nor tuneful art, nor polish'd verse requires,
To sing those charms, which every heart inspires.
Song.
SONG.
Dear girl, when around me the dark clouds are low'ring,
When loud o'er my head the deep thunder shall roll;
When fast o'er the wild heath the rain it falls pouring,
And the quick lightning's blaze shall illumine the whole,
Oh! ”

“ This song wuz the loud, strong chorus of Labor, that echoes all over the world, grand chorus that is played by the full orkestry of the sons and daughters of toil.
Oh, how many notes there is in this strong, ail-pervadin' anthem! Genius, and Patience, and Ambition, and Enterprise, and Ardent Endeavor—high notes, and low ones, all blent together, all tuned to the hauntin' key. It is a sam that shakes the hull earth with its might. ”

“ Music heard in the home or elsewhere will sometimes occupy the mind during working hours when the work is of a monotonous character. In some instances music has been provided during a certain part of the day, just for this need of workers who are employed in an occupation that in itself furnishes no mental nourishment. ”

“ The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture: the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy. ”

“ One cannot take ten steps without coming upon a shop in which whole mountains of rice-cakes and other confections are offered. If one hears in the distance an almost heavenly music, it is the song of a lady to the strum of a guitar. ”

“ That poetry and music were always combined by early man, and, along with labor, made up the primitive three-in-one, an organic whole, labor being the basal fact, with rhythm as an element common to the three; and that not harmony or pitch, but this overmastering and pervasive rhythm, exact, definite, was the main factor of early song,—these are conclusions for which Bücher offers ample and convincing evidence. ”

“ I have seen rough low-class men and women leave their active games or the swing for which they had been waiting and cluster round the singer or musician begging for another and yet ‘another bit.’ What they like best is a song with a chorus, or historical songs where they can hear the words, and next to these solemn music on a harmonium or organ; but any music charms them, and the hostess who is either musical herself or who invites her musical friends to help her finds the task of entertaining much easier. ”

“ If one goes in for a musical career, one should realize at the start, something of what it means, what is involved, and what must go with it. Singing itself is only a part, perhaps even the smaller part, of one's equipment. If opera be the goal, there are languages, acting, make up, impersonation, interpretation, how to walk, how to carry oneself, all to be added to the piano and harmony we have already spoken of. The art of the singer is a profession—yes, and a business too. ”

“ With the coming of respectability and even affluence to much of the labor force in the United States, workers do not sing as much as they used to. As Joe Glazer observed several years ago: "When six guys get killed on the job, you may get a song. ”