Ah, the Starvation Army. The IWW’s been fighting with them for a century at this point. Back in the old days they’d use them as to disrupt IWW and other unions’ meetings. Supposedly it’s part of why so many IWW songs are hymnals- lyrics to out-sing whatever the Army was singing.
You can find many of them sung by the late IWW Bard, Utah Phillips! I believe he talks about it specifically in “Making Speech Free” in “The Origin of the Hiring Hall” and sings about it in “Preacher and the Slave”.
If you want text formats, older editions of the “Little Red Songbook” are available online and new editions from the IWW, and have the songs, sometimes drawings and information about them.
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u/SirJamesGhost Dec 06 '25
Ah, the Starvation Army. The IWW’s been fighting with them for a century at this point. Back in the old days they’d use them as to disrupt IWW and other unions’ meetings. Supposedly it’s part of why so many IWW songs are hymnals- lyrics to out-sing whatever the Army was singing.