We asked labour historians to tell us about a song that they associate with labour history. We asked for songs that are part of labour history, which tell a story, or which, for serious and not so serious reasons, are worth recalling and remembering. 

Here, in a series of blog posts, our panel tell us what they have chosen – and why.

♫ The working class in twentieth century song: a fan’s note.
John McIlroy introduces our series on labour history ‘in tune’ and makes a personal choice of ten songs from the folk genre.

♫ In tune: The Bury New Loom
Ballad singer Jennifer Reid talks about and performs a bawdy song about a travelling loom engineer and the young woman who has need of his services.

♫ In tune: Des Métallos
Constance Bantman on Massilia Sound System’s musical account of the deindustrialization and gentrification of Marseille in the 1990s.

♫ In tune: Foster’s Mill
Joe Stanley on song commemorating the Luddite attack on Foster’s Mill that survives today only in fragments.

♫ In Tune: Part of the Union
Mark Crail asks whether the Strawbs’ 1973 hit was a celebration or a condemnation of trade unions.

♫ In Tune: Heigh-Ho!
Quentin Outram on Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and its lesson in the origins of capitalism.

♫ In Tune: The Ballad of Joe Hill
Keith Laybourn on an American trade union ballad performed by Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen.

♫ In Tune: Keep On Keepin On
Keith Flett on The Redskins’ mid-1980s exhortation to keep fighting in the face of defeat.

♫ In Tune: The Old Poacher’s Song
Mike Mecham introduces Red Flag writer Jim Connell’s recollections of the rural Irish radicalism of his youth.

♫ In Tune: The Manchester Rambler
Hazel Perry on a Ewan MacColl classic about the Kinder Scout Trespass and the right to roam.

♫ In Tune: Think Positive, Act Positive, Vote Labour
Mark Crail on a dud tune that probably says much about the Labour Party’s general election campaign of 1983.

♫ In Tune: Captain Swing
Keith Laybourn on Graham Moore’s modern take on the Swing Riots of the 1830s, and a memorable Whitby performance.

♫ In Tune: Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)
Vic Clarke argues that Wham! helped redefine masculinity for a 1980s generation by uncoupling it from work.

♫ In Tune: March of the Women
Janette Martin introduces the great suffragette anthem from 1910

♫ In Tune: Bandiera Rossa
Mark Crail on 1980s memories of the early twentieth century Italian workers’ movement anthem

Other articles on the website dealing with labour history and song include…

The Red Flag and the White Cockade. A short history of the labour movement anthem.

An Ownerless Corner of Earth. Mike Mecham introduces a double CD of songs by Irish labour historian, poet, singer and songwriter Francis Devine.

You tyrants of England! Your race may soon be run… In which Jennifer Reid performs the Chartist-era Shabby Feargus.

Red Wedge: from Constructivism to the Style Council. Mark Crail recalls the launch and later history of the Labour Party’s venture into mid 1980s youth culture.

From Joe Hill to The Man Who Waters the Workers’ Beer. Inside the pages of the Labour Party’s 1955 songbook