Mason KellerSunday, March 30, 2014

EQ-McKinney“Which Side Are You On?”

An Enduring Labor Tune

In the early 1930s, the coal miners of Harlan County, Kentucky began to strike

against their employer. Harlan was rather rural at the time. My great-grandmother, Edith

Coomer McGowan Riggs, grew up not far from Harlan in a different part of rural

Kentucky, Union Ridge-Cedar Crest. Grandma reported that Union Ridge did not have

running water or electricity until the late fifties. Much like Harlan, Union Ridge was

occupied by coal miners, so it is a safe bet that Harlan was similar in the ‘30s. The fact

that Harlan was so rural is important. One can hear Johnny Cash sing of the company

store in “Sixteen Tonnes,” and the miners’ families in Harlan would have been just as

dependent on the mining company. Being that mining towns mostly were controlled by

the mining companies, during the strikes in Harlan, the mining company paid off the

sheriff (mentioned in the song, J.H. Blaire) and hired goons, referred as deputies, to

harass striking workers. “Which Side Are You On?” was composed during this, the first

of many periods of labor unrest in Harlan County.

The song itself uses what I would consider typical labor rhetoric. By this I mean

that the song tends to personify labor unions, encouraging solidarity, and the

promulgating of a worker/owner dichotomy. The most striking feature, I think, is the

fact that even though the song was written specifically about one event in labor history,

that it mentions relatively little about the event itself. Labor songs, being an oral

tradition, rarely go alone. My father often told me stories during strike time that he had

heard at the picket, along with songs. Now, with that said, these songs often change over

Mason KellerSunday, March 30, 2014

EQ-McKinneytime. The version I have chosen to play in class is by the late Pete Seeger. I personally

know three other versions: one from my dad, one from Billy Bragg (an English protester

from the 70s and 80s), and the original from Florence Reece. In a way, the original is the

least important version, in that labor songs always live far, far longer than the events for

which they are written.

So, Harlan underwent many periods of labor unrest, each time with little getting

resolved. If that is the ruler by which we choose to measure a protest song’s value,

“Which Side are you On?” is not worth much. However, I think that is a poor metric.

Rather, we should appreciate the longevity of a song and how inspiring it is. Perhaps, it’s

the red streak in my heart, or the union’s inspiration in m y blood, but I find “Which

Side…”’s message both appealing and enflaming. By objective means though, I can attest

to this song’s longevity, as it was most definitely sung at the UAW’s strike at Intat

Precision, in Rushville, Indiana; My father was there, missing from the table, much like

the bread.