Talk:Work song

Sadness
I think work songs are sad because there about slaves, and slavery is sad. and BAD
 * Not all work songs are about slaves. They're actually quite common in a number of contexts.  A more complete article would make this clear, but they include sea shanties and things of that nature.  If you go to the article and click on "what links here", you can see the many different kinds of articles that talk about work songs. Tuf-Kat 01:46, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Sure is sad and bad. In the year of our lord 2005, in Europe, we're suffering a kind of slavery far more supportable than the Africans in the USA suffered, but liberty is far from just round the corner. Hearing how the Africans turned hell on earth into blues, "jass", to provide the basis of the finest music of the 20th century is a lesson to us all. The work songs help us understand how this could have happened, lacking as we do very much documentation. Someone find "It was early in the morning", PLEASE ! (An Alan Lomax recording, I think). -"loony@altern.org"

Please note that this discussion page is solely for discussion relating to the accompanying article. I realize that slavery is a very sensitive subject for a lot of people, and worthy of a LOT of discussion, but this is not the place for it. As this is an encyclopedia, please try to keep all talk here about facts relating to work songs and not about points-of-view on slavery. Thank you. -Âme Errante 08:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Multiple articles?
Possibly this should be turned into multiple articles, one for the slavery-related one, one for sea chanteys, and then this page should contain links to those and the Venezuelan work songs.

What's an acceptable term for the slavery-related ones? My tendancy is to refer to them as Negro work songs, as that's presumably what they would've been called at the time, but having not been brought up in the USA, I'm unsure whether this would cause complaint. Anyone?

-- TimNelson 05:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There should be a general page, which this is. Every culture has and has had work songs.  Crypticfirefly 23:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with a general page here with summaries of other articles, or information for particular traditions where there is not enough for a whole article. I think 'African American work songs' (they did, of course keep singing them after liberation) is probably an acceptable name and is worthy of an article of its own, not least because of their influence on jazz and rock through the blues.--Sabrebd (talk) 00:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

removed globalize template
I see no evidence that this article is US-biased. --Trovatore (talk) 04:56, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Nat Adderly "Work Song"
I think Work Song by Nat Adderley is probably notable enough for an article, which could then be hatnoted from this article. Does anyone know where to find sources? It's the one that starts
 *  Breakin' rocks out here on the chain gang
 *  Breakin' rocks an' servin' my time
 *  Breakin' rocks out here on the chain gang
 *  'Cause I've been convicted of crime
 *  Hold it steady right there while I hit it
 *  Lord I reckon that oughta get it
 *  I'm workin', workin', but I still got so terrible far to go

or something pretty close to that. --Trovatore (talk) 05:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)