Songs about Immigration
There are unfortunately not a ton of songs on this subject in our songbooks. The ones that are there are mainly in the "Home" or "Travelin'" chapter in each book. Here are some from our songbooks:
- Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) by Woody Guthrie
- Across the Borderline by John Hiatt, James Dickinson & Ry Cooder
- Kilkelly, Ireland by Peter & Steve Jones
- Same Boat Now by Betsy Rose ("We may have come here on different ships, but we're in the...")
- I Am a Wanderer by Steve Earle (with a verse on being a refugee)
- Welcome, Welcome, Emigrante by Buffy Sainte-Marie
- Un Canadien Errant - a song composed by A.Gerin LaJoie in 1842 about Canadians forced to go into exile in the U.S. after a failed popular uprising in lower Canada.
- Rivers of Babylon (reggae song)
- Babylon (round)
- Bisan - an anonymous song about Palestinians longing for their homeland
There are many more songs about internal immigration (i.e. missing where one came from even if one hasn't travelled to another country) in the chapters noted above.
And some others that aren't (unfortunately) in our books:
- Lady of the Harbor by Joe Jencks
- Marching into the Light by Andres Useche - written in respoonse to SB1090 law in Arizona
- Dream to Belong by Andres Useche (in support of the Dream Act)
- So We Resolve by Ruth Pelham - on standing up to Islamophobia
- Stand Up by Mike Stern - based on the statement by Martin Niemoller with a final verse re refugees
- Kristallnacht Is Coming by Bob Franke
- Jesus Was a Refugee by The Nields
- There Is a Wall - by Charlie King
- Walls - by Kennedy-Rose - Peter Paul & Mary recorded this as "Some Walls"