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point*of viewThe BigRedSongbook:100 Yearsof WobblySongloreFew workers’ associationsin the UnitedStates exist longenough to celebratetheir centennials. Tradeunions, fraternal organizations,and neighborhood alliances allfall victim to shifts in ideologicalor physical environments.Before a labor union reaches itshundredth year, it is likely tohave merged with parallel orsubordinate groups. Thus, membersface their anniversarieswith diverse feelings: do wehonor old age alone; is it onlysurvival that matters; or, alternately,do we elevate a particularsymbolic emblem or specialformulation to representout identity?From its inception in Chicagoin 1905, the Industrial Workersof the World chose as its guidingcause revolutionary industrialunionism. To the extent thatIWW members concerned themselvesconsciously with culturaltheory, like rival radicals, theyrelegated expressive materialto an auxiliary role. In short,bedrock economic struggletook priority over secondaryartistic forms.Songs, stories, sayings, skitsand related ephemera commentedupon class conflict, but didnot rise to the level of directaction in mine, mill, forest orfactory. Whether rebel viewedwork through Darwinian orMarxian eyes, each job sitedetermined the contour of lifeitself. A song, however categorized,might ease a worker’spain, help in getting through theday, or, even beyond individualneeds, assist in transformingsociety.As 2005 approached, in recognitionof the IWW’s centennial, agroup of friends discussed thepossibility of publishing The BigRed Songbook, a comprehensivegathering of songs andpoems as they appeared in thevarious editions of the IWW’s“Little Red Songbook.” Theseindividuals did not constitute aformal (or even an ad hoc) editorialcommittee. We undertookto research and write the variousportions of the new edition,forthcoming from the Charles H.Kerr Publishing Company. It ismy task, here, to present anoverview of IWW songlore.Even before the IWW’s formalchartering a hundred years ago,farsighted industrial unionistsspoke in many tongues reflectingdifferent nativities andphilosophies. Accepting theresponsibility of building a thennewworkers’ movement, laborunionloyalists, anarcho-syndicalists,and socialists framedtheir messages in a rainbow ofvoices. Similarly, hard-rock miners,straw cats who harvestedwheat, fruit and other crops,lintheads in textile mills,mariners, castaways and wanderersshouted or whispered astheir separate skills demanded.Some IWW writers and oratorsboth in their journalism and10 WIP 2006-2007 Winter