The Preacher and the Slave, is an inspirational song by Joe Hill
written between 1910 and 1915, the beginning of the progressive era in America, when people who worked had no rights at all. The song is included in his Little Red Songbook.
“A pamphlet,
no matter how good, is never read more than once," Hill once wrote to a friend. "But a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over.”
In 1914, during bitter struggles
over free speech in Utah, Joe Hill was framed on a murder charge. He was shot to death by a firing squad on November
19, 1915 by the State of Utah, the state, incidentally, dominated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
-- a demanding communitarian cult headed by a "prophet" who Mormons believe speaks for God .
“Shall you
kneel in deep submission from your cradle to your grave?
Is the height of your ambition to be a good and willing slave?"
His funeral in Chicago was attended by more that 30,000.
Eulogies were read in nine languages. He became a martyr for progressives worldwide
and his songs became rallying cries and inspiration for generations of protestors. His
last words to his public were: "Don't waste time mourning! Organize!"
Sixty years later and half a world away, John Lennon would pick up
the challenge to the controlling forces of religious bigots* and institutions, and echo the sentiments of The Preacher and the Slave in “I Found Out” (1970). Here, he directly replicates the idea of "clerics" offering “pie in the sky”
originally offered by Joe Hill:
"Old Hare Krishna got nothing on
you.
Just keep you crazy with nothing to do;
Keep you occupied with pie in the sky,
There ain't no guru who can
see through your eyes"
The influence of Hill can also be heard in
Imagine, Lennon’s challenge to expectations and external controls that limit the individual, and in the hypnotic
anthem-cadences of Give Peace a Chance.
Now again, in the 21st Century Holy
War, we will all have many other chances to challenge age-old clerical-political ideas that forbid liberty and free will --
forces that have not yet come to terms with The Enlightenment and still seek to defy the established declarations of Human
Rights.
