This is the email I got from Shay Black that announces the posting of this tune:
At last, a song that chronicles in verse Barack Obama's historic journey to become the first Black Irish President of the United States.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EADUQWKoVek
Hit the little button that says "Watch in high quality."
Recorded on September 14th, 2008 at the Sunday night Irish music session at the Starry Plough pub in Berkeley, California.
http://www.starryploughpub.com/history/
This is an open music and song session, now running weekly for over thirteen years.
The basics of the song started with the Corrigan Brothers in Ireland. www.HardyDrew.com
Extra verse contributions (in some form) by Shay Black, Celia Ramsey, Chris Caswell, Walter Askew (Salty Walt), Craig Johnson, Tom Clancy, Barry Gleeson, Dave Sahn, Peter Heelan.
Please forward, and if you can't learn all the words, learn and sing the chorus.
Yes, we can.
~ Shay Black
In case you are wondering what the quote says behind the singer, here you go:
No revolutionary movement is
complete with out its poetic
expression. If such a movement
has caught hold of the
imagination of the masses,
they will seek a vent in song
for the aspirations, fears, and
hopes, the loves and hatreds
engendered by the struggle.
Until the movement is marked
by the joyous, defiant singing
of revolutionary songs, it lacks
one of the most distinctive
marks of a popular revolutionary
movement; it is the dogma of the few
and not the faith of the multitude
1 comment:
This quote, written on the back wall of the Starry Plough pub in Berkeley, is a quote from James Connolly, one of the Irish revolutionaries who was shot by the British, in the aftermath of the 1916 Irish rebellion. It ultimately led to the overthrow of British rule in the south of Ireland.
He helped to found the Irish Labour Party. James Connolly also formed the Irish Citizens Army during the so-called ‘Great Lock-Out’ of 1913.This was created to protect the workers from any groups that might have been employed by the employers to ‘rough up’ any striking worker.
In 1915, James Connolly was appointed acting General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. He also commanded units of the Irish Citizens Army and took an active part in the preparations for the 1916 Rising. He was appointed Military Commander of the Republican Forces in Dublin, which encompassed the Irish Citizens Army.
When the rebellion started on Monday 24th April, James Connolly was one of the seven signatories to the Proclamation. Connolly was in charge of the General Post Office during the rebellion – the rebels headquarters. He was severely wounded during the fighting and was arrested once the rebels had surrendered. He was court-martialled in a military hospital in Dublin. Charged with treason, there was no doubt as to what the verdict and punishment would be.
On May 12th,1916, Connolly was shot by firing squad. He had been taken by military ambulance to Kilmainham Prison, carried on a stretcher to a courtyard in the prison, tied to a chair and shot. With the other executed rebels, his body was put into a mass grave with no coffin. All the executions of the rebels angered many Irish people who had shown little support for the rebels during the rebellion. However, it was the circumstances of Connolly’s execution that created the most anger. In death, Connolly and the other rebels had succeeded in rousing many Irish people who had been, at best, indifferent to the rebels and their desires when they had been alive.
Connolly was a self-educated man who became a brilliant speaker, writer and visionary.
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