>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Joe Hill
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "The Gray Wizard" >>
>>
>> > Old fogies reference and apropos of nothing -
>> >
>> > I find myself totally unable to read a post from Joe without
>> singing in my
>> > head:
>> >
>> > I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
>> > Alive as you and me.
>> > Said I, but Joe, you're ten years dead.
>> > I never died said he
>> > I never died said he
>> >
>> > Sorry!
>> Never heard that, what is it, and who's it by?
>
>No, you wouldn't have heard of him unless you were at least as old as I am
>(58) and grew up in a radical tradition. Joe Hill, also known as Joseph
>Hilstrom, but whose real name was Joel Emmanuel Haggland, was executed for
>murder in 1915. He was an organizer for a radical labor organization
called
>the IWW (International Workers of the World) better known as the
"Wobblies".
>He became something of a legend, either labor hero or criminal, depending
on
>whether you read the labor press or police reports. In a message from his
>death row cell, Joe Hill sent a telegram to fellow Wobbly "Big Bill"
>Haywood. The message would become a rallying cry for protestors for
>generations to come: "Don't waste time mourning. Organize!"
>
>The song was written by Alfred Hayes sometime in the late '30s and sung by
a
>number of people thereafter including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Joan
>Baez. Such were the legends of my youth.
>
Ah, yes. I had the same association, and thought perhaps (Conlang) Joe Hill
might be a pseudonym......In college days (a bit earlier than you, even) we
got into Labor songs, Spanish Civil War songs-- the idea of a bunch of
snotty Harvard kids sitting around singing these things is rather startling.
Oddly enough, we also got a peculiar frisson from a recording of Nazi
marching songs. The power of music!