Do You Hear The People Sing?

1832

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?

Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance?
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes

Ok, so it was not 1789 (screwed with some French TV Interviewer’s heads when they asked me if I was aware of Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier’s importance to the Revolution. 1776, 1789, or 1830? Not all of us are ignorant.), and du Motier was on the side of Louis-Philippe not the Parisian rabble which is a mark against, but it’s a good song as a populist anthem.

That’s Hong Kong but it’s not the airport, it’s a rally from June 26th.

This is Occupy. This is the Resistance. It frustrates NeoLib Elites because there’s no one to surrender to and betray.

The Hong Kong protesters have found an anthem in this song from ‘Les Miz’
By Peter Marks, Washington Post
August 13, 2019

The song is introduced late in the first act by the Parisian students who raise barricades in the streets in revolt against French authorities. In the musical — based on Victor Hugo’s historical novel of the same title — sad to say, the revolt eventually is put down. Nevertheless, “Do You Hear the People Sing?” has been invoked in political demonstrations around the world in recent years. It’s gone from applause generator in playhouses to emotion-stoking anthem for grass-roots movements.

In the well-sung rendition by the airport chorus, you get whiffs of defiance and altruism, values embodied by the number itself. Of course the full version foreshadows darker events: “The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!” the song declares. Although the lyric that seems to echo most vibrantly remains that one about the life about to start, when tomorrow comes. For these protesters, it is presumably not the tragic dimension of “Les Miz” that beckons them — it’s the resilience of the underdog.

If you want to stop war and stuff you have to sing loud.

With feeling.