【BigAL】 Solidarity forever.; Let’s exterminate the child labour !. 児童労働の撲滅! 【 Vocaloid 2】
“Solidarity Forever”, written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915, is perhaps the most famous union anthem after The Internationale[citation needed]. It is sung to the tune of “John Brown’s Body” and is inspired by the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Although it was written as a song for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), other union movements, such as the AFL-CIO, have adopted the song as their own. The song has been performed in recent years by musicians such as the late Utah Phillips, and was redone by Emcee Lynx. It is still commonly sung at union meetings and rallies in the United States, Australia and Canada, and has also been sung at conferences of the Australian Labor Party and the Canadian New Democratic Party. This may have also inspired the hymn of the consumer cooperative movement, “The Battle Hymn of Cooperation”, which is sung to the same tune.
When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.
Is there ought we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.
Chorus
It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong.
Chorus
All the world that’s owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.
Chorus
They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.
Chorus
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.
歌詞は、1915年にアメリカの社会主義者 R.Chaplinによって作詞されたもので、労働運動歌として世界的に有名な歌であるが、日本ではあまり知られていない。
曲は、元々のメロディはWilliam Steffeによって1856年に作曲された黒人霊歌「Say, brothers, will you meet us」だったが、狂信的な奴隷制度廃止論者のJohn Brownの功績を称える唄「John Brown’s Body」のメロディに引用された。この曲は、1961年4月の南北戦争開戦以来、北軍の非公式な行軍曲として兵士によって盛んに唄われた。1961年、詩人のJulia Ward Howeはこの曲に感銘を受け、北軍兵士を讃える歌を作詞した。この詩は『リパブリック讃歌』と命名され1862年2月にthe Atlantic Monthlyにおいて匿名で発表されると直ちに北軍兵士の間で最も人気の高い歌の1つとなり、現在でもアメリカ合衆国の愛唱歌として広く唄い継がれるようになった。