> billy bragg's translation of the internationale goes like this: "stand up
all
> victims of oppression for the tyrants fear your might <...> let racist
> ignorance be ended for respect makes the empires fall" sorry i have nothing
> better for reference.
Not a translation, but a new set of lyrics written by Bragg. Bragg's version
of The Internationale is on the CD of the same name (Utility Records, 1990).
>From the CD liner notes:
"The Internationale. Eugene Pottier wrote the original lyrics of the Internationale after the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871. This was set to music by Pierre Degeyter, a textile worker from Lille, who composed the tune for his factory chorus in 1888." ... "...Pete Seeger asked me to sing the Internationale with him at the Vancouver Folk Festival. I told him I thought the English lyrics, whose translator is unknown, were archaic and often unsingable. He agreed and suggested I write some new lyrics to Degeyter's stirring tune."
The CD also includes Bragg's versions of "Blake's Jerusalem" and James Connell's "The Red Flag." The latter is not set to the tune of "Oh Tannenbaum," as it is usually sung, but restored to its original melody, "The White Cockade," in the words of the liner notes "a sprightly reel not a funereal dirge."
Jacob Conrad