Sarah Ogan Gunning -- "Come All Ye Coal Miners"
One suspects that Alan Lomax knew what he was doing when he recorded Sarah Ogan Gunning singing her song, which is punctuated throughout by the chronic cough of a miner in the audience. This is an angry song, a shocking song to a contemporary audience accustomed to thinking of old-time music as tame, traditional, and conservative. Though the politics of the song are a little crude ("Let's sink this capitalist system to the darkest pits of hell"), they are impassioned, and they are fully justified by the sorrowful details of Gunning's life. Here's one woman who didn't just sit idly by while the ones she loved died from the craven exploitation of their one and only resource, which was their willingness to work. I wish that I could play this song for all of the conservative politicians and pundits who casually toss the term "socialist" around. Then they'd know what a real socialist is like, and -- even if they'd never admit it out loud -- in their hearts they'd know her for what she was -- an American hero.
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