Labor Day I

This fine Labor Day, I want to run a series of posts remembering the great history of work and the lack thereof in American music. For the first post, here’s some Dave Alvin. A former member of The Blasters and X, Alvin has a long history of writing about unions and work in song during his long solo career. Here’s an early example, “Brother on the Line.”

Also from his first solo album is “Jubilee Train,” a good example of remembering how great the New Deal was for the American working-class.

During the Bush years, he wrote “Out of Control,” which he would dedicate live to the Dick Cheney economy:

Finally, on his latest album, Alvin wrote one of the best songs about working people in the last several years, “Gary, Indiana 1959” about the 1959 steel strike:

It’s also worth remembering that today is anniversary of the Rock Springs Massacre, so this is a good time to remember that the history of American work is very much also the history of immigration and racial oppression.