I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night …

[Judi Lynn]

November 10, 2015
I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night …

by Lily Murphy



This years marks the centenary of the execution of trade union activist Joe Hill in Utah on November 19th 1915. For many people today he is perhaps best known as the subject of the folk ballad written by Alfred Hayes in 1936.

Hayes was born in London in 1911 but emigrated to the United States with his family as a three year old and grew up in New York City. After graduating from New York’s City College he worked for a number of newspapers in the city.

In 1928 Hayes joined the Young Communist League and rose within the left wing fold as a poet of the working class with his most celebrated piece being Joe Hill.

Hayes wrote it as a poem in upstate New York at a left wing retreat called Camp Unity during the Summer of 1936. Hayes met Earl Robinson there and upon hearing Hayes recite his poem Robinson instantly put the words to music as part of a campfire session celebrating the trade union icon. By that September the song had been published in The Daily Worker and became a popular song with members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting Franco’s fascists in Spain.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/10/i-dreamed-i-saw-joe-hill-last-night/

[left-of-center2012]

1. Pete Seeger

[Botany]

5. Pete Seeger Guantanamera

[cascadiance]

2. Joan Baez at Woodstock...

[Paka]

3. K&R

Thanks for that reminder Judi. It's my birthday, so I will pause and celebrate by thinking of all that Joe Hill represents. With the terrible demise of unions in the country we need a new Joe Hill.

[tzar paul]

7. Amen to that!

In fact, we need unions now even more than we did 100 years ago! K&R to Judi Lynn!

[upaloopa]

4. I was just singing that Joe Hill song to myself a few minutes ago. I didn't know why it came to me

[Stevepol]

6. Many years after my dad died, I was feeling sad about it.

That night I had a dream which connected him with Joe Hill. My dad was a welder in the Boilermaker-Blacksmith's union who was very proud of being in the union.

Wow! There are some fast posters around here. I decided to post my youtube of Baez singing the song and as soon as I got it up, I discovered somebody had beaten me to the punch. Oh well, two different singings of the same some, if it's a good one, can't be a bad thing.