There are chapters of Grannies all over the world, “out in the streets promoting peace, justice, social and economic equality through song and humour.” The original group of Raging Grannies was formed in 1987 in Victoria, British Columbia, but today you can find "gaggles of Grannies" throughout Canada, Australia, Israel, Scotland, and the United States. The Raging Grannies have a database of 450 song lyrics on their website that can be used “non-commercially as a form of protest, and not for entertainment,” which states, “You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for a song to express your outrage about all of those things that threaten our grandchildren’s futures — pollution, militarism, greed, ‘isms and more.”
The Raging Grannies were in the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison to participate in The Solidarity Sing-Along, which has been happening every week day during the noon hour since Friday, March 2011. Last week, Capitol Police began enforcing the administrative code which says that groups of 20 or more are required to get a permit.
Jenna was there on August 1st to document some of the 23 citations that were given to both participants and tourists who were there observing the Sing-Along.
A tourist from Arizona is warned that she will be arrested if she doesn't stop singing along.
The Raging Grannies sing this verse to the tune of Woodie Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land:
In the squares of the city,
in the shadow of the steeple
In the Capitol, I seen my people
And some are grumblin’
and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me
“Anybody got a rock?
The Raging Grannies sing this verse to the tune of Woodie Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land:
In the squares of the city,
in the shadow of the steeple
In the Capitol, I seen my people
And some are grumblin’
and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me
You can get a sense of the spirit of the Solidarity Sing Along in this video featured in PBS' American Masters interactive documentary, “This Land is Your Land Project” which celebrates the Woodie Guthrie Centennial.
© Copyright 1956 (renewed), 1958 (renewed), 1970 and 1972 by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)
Woodie Guthrie's song, This Land Is Your Land, was actually the very first song that the founders of Rooftop School considered when they were looking for a song that the community could sing each day at Morning Circle.
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
*******
“Anybody got a rock?
There’s a window back here that needs to be opened!”
— Woodie Guthrie joked and sang, “We Shall Not Be Moved,” when his car was surrounded by an angry mob after a performance in Peekskill, New York.
The 1949 outdoor concert with Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte and Paul Robeson, benefitting the Civil Rights Congress, prompted one of the ugliest days in music's history. Known as The Peekskill Riots, angry locals from Westchester County New York took to throwing racial slurs and rocks in response to Paul Robeson's scheduled performance at an open-air concert in Lakeland Acres, north of Peekskill, on September 4th, 1949.
*******
There is a long history of social protest through song in America. The civil rights movement used songs as an expression of dissent, and this tradition has been carried forward with every movement thereafter. Rooftop School began exploring this history with Marcus Shelby's oratorio, Soul of the Movement: Meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“With this music, a rich heritage from our ancestors who had the stamina and moral fiber to be able to find beauty in broken fragments of music, whose illiterate minds were able to compose eloquently simple expressions of faith and hope and idealism, we can articulate our deepest groans and passionate yearnings-and end always on a note of hope that God is going to help us work it out, right here in the South where evil stalks the life of a Negro from the time he is placed in the cradle. Through this music, the Negro is able to dip down into wells of a deeply pessimistic situation and danger-fraught circumstances and bring forth a marvelous, sparkling, fluid optimism. He knows it is still dark in his world, but somehow, he finds a ray of light”.
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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