In this special 1917 Strike issue of Hummer, we offer two more songs related to the Great Strike which featured in PP Cranney and Christina Mimmocchi’s 1917: Strike! show. Both were poems, written at the time of, or shortly after, the Strike, which were set to music by Mimmocchi in 2017. They amply demonstrate both the depth of feeling aroused by the Strike and the long shadows of its aftermath.
The Song of the Strike, penned by an anonymous author, sets the Strike in the context of the Great War, drawing connections between the workers’ struggle and that of Australian troops fighting in France.
The Scab, written by “HJL” and published in The Railway Issue in January 1927, ten years after the Strike, explores the legacy of shame felt by the families of those who scabbed in 1917.