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By Ewan MacColl
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By Ewan MacColl
Sings British Industrial Ballads
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Industrial Folk Song
Industrial folk song (also called industrial folk music, industrial work song, or industrial working song) is a branch of folk and traditional music that focuses on the lives, risks, and solidarities of industrial laborers. It typically adapts older folk forms—especially narrative ballads and agricultural work songs—into songs about factories, mines, mills, railways, shipyards, and other industrial workplaces. Lyrically, it often documents working conditions, class struggle, accidents and disasters, migration for work, unionization, and protest, while musically it tends to remain direct and singable so groups can perform it together in social or organizing settings.
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