Woodman, Spare That Tree, George Morris
Inversnaid, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Still I Rise, Mary Angelou
Mississippi Goddam, Nina Simone
Only a Pawn in Their Game, Bob Dylan
The United Fruit Co., Pablo Neruda
Do You Hear The People Sing? (Les Miserables)
……….Alain Boublil (Claude-Michel Schönberg)
Partisans’ Song, Hirsh Glik
Call and Answer, Robert Bly
The Preacher and the Slave (Pie in the Sky), Joe Hill
Advertisement for the Waldorf Astoria – Langston Hughes
Do You Hear The People Sing?
* * *
Sixteen Tons, Merle Travis or George Davis
Robin Hood – John Keats
Robin Hood – Theme Song
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Masters of War – Bob Dylan
Vietnam Song, County Joe & The Fish
What Are You Doing?, Larry Kutcher
Okie from Muskogee, Merle Huggard
The Great City, Walt Whitman
The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaney
Manifesto, Wendell Berry
Homework, Allen Ginsberg
Pastures of Plenty, Woody Guthrie
Imagine, John Lennon
Jerusalem, William Blake
Redemption Song, Bob Marley
Get Up, Stand Up, Bob Marley
Woodman, Spare That Tree
by George Morris
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.
Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!
When but an idle boy
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here too my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand —
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand!
My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot:
While I’ve a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.
Inversnaid
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Still I Rise
by Mary Angelou
You should get the text from another source.
Mississippi Goddam
by Nina Simone
You should get the text from another source.
Only a Pawn in Their Game*
by Bob Dylan
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood.
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game.
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than blacks, don’t complain
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
‘Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
From the powerty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ‘neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.
* Used with the kind permission of Bob Dylan Music Company.
The United Fruit Co.
by Pablo Neruda
(translated)
You should get the text from another source.
Do You Hear The People Sing?
(Les Miserables)
by Alain Boublil (Claude-Michel Schönberg)
You should get the text from another source.
Partisans’ Song
by Hirsh Glik
(translated)
You must not say that you now walk the final way,
because the darkened heavens hide the blue of day.
The time we’ve longed for will at last draw near,
and our steps, as drums, will sound that we are here.
From land all green with palms to lands all white with snow,
we now arrive with all our pain and all our woe.
Where our blood sprayed out and came to touch the land,
there our courage and our faith will rise and stand.
The early morning sun will brighten our day,
and yesterday with our foe will fade away,
But if the sun delays and in the east remains –
This song as motto to generations must remain.
This song was written with our blood and not with lead,
It’s not a little tune that birds sing overhead,
This song a people sang amid collapsing walls,
With pistols in hand they heeded to the call.
Therefore never say the road now ends for you.
Though leaden skies may cover over days of blue.
As the hour that we longed for is so near.
Our steps beat out the message: We are here!
Call and Answer
by Robert Bly
You should get the text from another source.
The Preacher and the Slave (Pie in the Sky)
by Joe Hill
Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;
But when asked how ’bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.
The starvation army they play,
They sing and they clap and they pray
‘Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they’ll tell you when you’re on the bum:
[Repeat chorus]
Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all your troubles today.
If you fight hard for children and wife —
Try to get something good in this life —
You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.
Workingmen of all countries, unite,
Side by side we for freedom will fight;
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain:
You will eat, bye and bye,
When you’ve learned how to cook and to fry.
Chop some wood, ’twill do you good,
And you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye.
Advertisement for the Waldorf Astoria
by Langston Hughes
You should get the text from another source.
Do You Hear The People Sing?
(Les Miserables)
by Alain Boublil (Claude-Michel Schönberg)
You should get the text from another source.