Daughters of the world, awake, From yourselves your fetters shake Arise determined to go free, Direct your paths to liberty.
A thousand years in bondage lain, Break up your prison-house of pain, Demand the rights of humankind The rights of body and of mind.
Daughters arise in your might, Onward in the bitter fight: With the sword of truth Bring the world new youth And victory to humankind!
Too long you’ve been the thralls of men, In kitchen, factor and den Too long you’ve paid the price for all Without a voice- unheard; your call; You’ve borne the children of each age Yet never a word in history’s page. Demand the right to have your say In the making and building of the day!
Daughters arise in your might, Onward in the bitter fight: With the sword of truth Bring the world new youth And victory to humankind!
The world is full of woe and pain Of desolation, greed and gain The world is full of slaves and lords; Oppressors bind us with their cords. Daughters, arise and free the slaves And free yourselves from darkened graves Demand the earth as right for all. No man or woman shall be thrall!
Daughters arise in your might, Onward in the bitter fight: With the sword of truth Bring the world new youth And victory to humankind!
(Rebecca Buhay)
(Maritime Labour Herald 16 August 1924: 3)
By The Yarnells
KATE BURNS – VOCALS, MEAGAN KEMP – BACKUP VOCALS, JUSTIN VALLIS – GUITAR, BRIAN BURNS – BASS, DARREN GALLOP – DRUMS
About The Yarnells
The Yarnells can easily be described as what happens when you get a dozen of the best young musicians in Cape Breton in one room and let them create their own sound. With musicians coming from incredibly diverse backgrounds, The Yarnells have found a unique common ground with clear folk inspirations combined with a mosaic of harmony/fiddle/keyboard/trumpet licks that will put a big dumb grin on your face.
We know about Rebecca (Becky) Buhay because of Joan Sangster’s pioneering work on the history of women on the left in Canada in the twentieth century (1989). Buhay, a pivotal leader in the Communist Party of Canada in the 1920s and 30s, was from a working class Jewish family which emigrated to Montreal from London’s east end. She worked as a photo finisher, tobacco worker and garment industry worker (Sangster: 1989: 65). She helpedorganize the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America, went to New York City toward the end of World War I and became involved in American socialist politics. Sangster says, “Buhay’s high profile led to government surveillance and her hasty return to Montreal in late 1919” (66). On her return to Canada she helped organize the Montreal Labour College and by 1922 was “deeply involved in the [Communist] Party [of Canada]” (66). She moved to Toronto to Communist Party headquarters by 1929 and became
secretary of the Canadian Labour Defense League and head of the Women’s department (66). Sangster describes an incident that provides insight into Buhay’s personalityand commitment to her cause: “Buhay… had… salient experiences with the police. In the middle of a public meeting during the free speech fights, the police raided the theatre, whisked the speakers off the stage, and dropped the curtain. Buhay, not one to be easily silenced, crawled under the curtain and began to denounce the police to an enthusiastic audience. Suddenly, she began to faint and was grabbed by Tim Buck; she had finally been silenced by police tear gas” (66). Her songs ask workers to rise up and change the capitalistic society in which they are ensnared.
Reference
Sangster, Joan. Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920-60. Don Mills, ON: Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989 (reprinted 2015 by University of Toronto Press).