Industrial (revolution) songs

Automation, IT…

Including various songs from the Spanish Industrial Revolution. There are more songs about mechanical music here.

Please note:

All these street organ arrangements for my modifed Topsy 3 are home-made. Contact me if you want a custom arrangement - whether a modification of a number below or something new - for your own street organ, musical box, barrel piano, or whatever.
The MP3s below use Virtual Studio Technology: this is NOT the real sound, and someone needs to sing!
Lyrics or translations can be displayed live on a screen, karaoke-style.

Title	Artist	La	Year	Comments
Villancico linuxero	Pánico en el núcleo (Panic in the kernel)	es	2011	Linux carol disparages Windows and Mac, makes Spanish nerds laugh: Que le den al Guindos, que le den al Mac, / que yo uso Linux y me va genial.
Lady Java	Oracle / Lady Gaga	en	2010
Copla del viudo del submarino	Juan Antonio Canta	es	1996	From the last Andalusian avant-gardist: En el fondo del mar tengo yo / Una novia en silencio / Un poquito de pescaito frito / Me trae su recuerdo Video, possibly from another time or person:
Appellation contrôlée	Fay Lovsky	en	1992	Chanson pseudo-française: nostalgia for bad French wine. Video, possibly from another time or person:
Song for the British working class	Cornelius Cardew	en	1979	Albanian scansion for one of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)'s more curious attempts to connect with normal people: Persisting in the face of every difficulty / In 1979 was formed our new party, a glorious victory. / Rallying to this flag is the only way, workers / To usher in, a bright new day of / Socialism in Britain.
Inland waterway	John Betjeman / Ben Sawyer	en	1974	On the opening of the Upper Avon Navigation by the Queen Mum in 1974, part of the irresistible rise of the Inland Waterways Association: The lock you have reopened will set free / The heart of England to the open sea.
King of Rome	Dave Sudbury / June Tabor / The Unthanks	en	1970s?	A pigeon race from Rome to England in 1913: On the day o' the big race a storm blew in / A thousand birds were swept away and never seen again.
Het dorp / La montagne	Wim Sonneveld / Jean Ferrat	nl fr	1970	Another Dutch plundering of French repertoire: nostalgia available in both languages.
The slow train	Flanders & Swann	en	1964	A nostalgic look at the Beeching cuts. Video, possibly from another time or person:
Ballad of Sigmund Freud	Chad Mitchell Trio	en	1960	Well, Doctor Freud, oh Doctor Freud / How we wish you had been differently employed / But the set of circumstances / Still enhances the finances / of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud
Santa Bárbara Bendita		es	1950	Emblematic mining accident at the Pozo María Luisa, Asturias in 1949.
Karussell (Wir reiten auf hölzernen Pferden) / Carousel (We ride on wooden horses)	Leo Straus / Martin Roman	de en	1944	Translation of a song from the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. When you get off, will you be able to stand up? Quotes the Wiener Praterleben waltz by fellow-inmate of Death's waiting-room, Siegfried Translateur.
Complainte pour l'orgue de la nouvelle barbarie	Louis Aragon	fr	1940	Wartime poem from after his conversion to Marxism: Ceux qu'arrêtèrent les barrages. / Sont revenus en plein midi. / Morts de fatigue et fous de rage.
The Workman's Friend	Flann O'Brien (Brian O'Nolan) / The Singing Organ-Grinder	en	1939	Porter meets the Plain People, from At Swim-Two-Birds
When I'm cleaning windows	George Formby	en	1936	From the film, Keep Your Seats, Please
To The Tabulating Machine Division (IBM Songbook)	IBM employees	en	1935	Punch a card for every sale that's made. / There's a record which will never fade. / Sort them out by man and state - / Speedily we tabulate. Etc. etc.
Zuiderzee	Louis Davids	nl	1932	The consequences of the construction of the Afsluitdijk dam, which turned the Zuyder Zee from a North Sea inlet into a fresh-water lake.
My brother makes the noises for the talkies	Albert Whelan / Jack Payne / Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band	en	1931
Berlin im Licht	Kurt Weill	de	1928	Foxtrot written for a festival of light staged by the Berliner Stadtwerke power company for the 1928 Berlin Festival. A companion piece to the Dutch electricity workers' union song, Op naar het licht.
Mackie Messer / Mack the Knife	Bertolt Brecht / Kurt Weill	de en	1928	Originally intended for performance with barrel organ.
El menú	Zöllner / Arregui Trecet	es	1927	La versión conocida es la de Los Xey (1953), pero canto la que se hizo para la Coral del Ensanche de Bilbao.
El dilluns jo no treballo	Valenciano	ca	1920	Song in Valencian lists the days of the week on which I don't work. Their number is lucky. Video, possibly from another time or person:
El nuevo Ford	Cubano	es	1920
Panpipe call used by an itinerant French pot-mender and pig-gelder in Galicia	Trad.	es fr	1920	With humorous quotes from Spanish Golden Age theatre (inc Quevedo and Calderón), sketching the accent, appearance and behaviour of French castrators and pot menders in the 16th/17th centuries. (Ambulant moped-chain-powered knife-grinders in Barcelona and other Mediterranean cities still use panpipes as advertising medium, but with less sophistication.)
My old man said follow the van	Marie Lloyd / Lily Morris	en	1919	For Josep Viladot, great Londoner, exiled in Gracia, Barcelona.
Had je me maar	Louis Davids	nl	1916	Song that provided the nickname for the Dutch anarchist politician, Cornelis de Gelder.
Second Sonata, The Airplane, fragmento	George Antheil		1916	Everything's back to front: The Singing Organ-Grinder is the plane.
Toccata No. 2	George Antheil		1916
Crits del carrer	Joan Amades Cançoner / English C17th canon	ca	1910	Audience participation required in this canon consisting of the cries (in Catalan) of the vendors of potatoes, hats and chocolate. As good in its way as Clément Janequin, Voulez ouyr les cris de Paris
La maquinista: polka corejada	Josep Anselm Clavé	ca	1900	Clavé trolls the anarchists: Dali sens descans, / es lo pa de la familia, / la suor de nostre afany.
Valencia	José Padilla	es	1900	Based on a piano roll scan. It's as if the arranger located Valencia on the east coast of Asia instead of that of Spain. / Basado en un escaneo de rollo de pianola. Parece que el arreglista ubicó Valencia en la costa levantina de Asia en vez de España.
El chincatapunchincógrafo, etcétera	Antonio Rodríguez Martínez / Coro “Los Abanicos”	es	1897	Song about the marvels of electricity: En la época presente / no hay nada tan floreciente / como la electricidad... Hasta yo creo que un aparato de inventará / para fabricar chiquillos / por medio de la electricidad.
Paternal. Tornant del Liceu en la nit del 7 de novembre de 1893	Joan Maragall / The Singing Organ-Grinder	ca en	1893	I've done this a few times in Catalan and English but don't really know where to take it next.
Ya hemos visitado el Astillero	Los Moros Babucheros	es	1891	Working conditions in the factory at San Severiano, Cádiz could certainly be improved
Mamma mia, dammi 100 lire che in America voglio andar (Mum, give me 100 lire cos I want to go to America)	Anon	it	1890ish?	About the great Italian emigration (late C19th - 1930s). Often used with children. Should 'America' now be replaced by 'London'? Cento lire io te le do, ma in America no no no! 100 lire I'll give you, but America, no no no!
Trenta giorni di nave a vapore (Thirty days in a steamship)	Anon	it	1890?	About the great Italian emigration to the Americas beginning in the late C19th.
Epitaph for James Bosworth, who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade and died, aged 70, a stationmaster at Northam, Southampton	Ben Trovato	en	1882	His name was actually John Hacker/Hucker Bosworth and his service overseas in the 1850s doesn't seem to include Balaclava, but still a splendid thing: Though shot and shell flew around fast, / On Balaclava’s plain, / Unscathed he passed, to fall at last, / Run over by a train.
Th' owd knocker-iup	Henry Yates ('Tansy Tuft')	en	1880s?	Lancashire dialect song by a cotton worker and amateur poet from Blackburn
The knocker-up	Anon		1880	How did factory workers get out of bed before alarm clocks?
Manantiales de nitroglicerina (Nitroglycerin springs)	Anón	es	1873	Anarchist song: Nivelacion social!... Rota la valla / No más habrá, no más ladrones; / Partirémos sus bienes, sus millones / Cuando llegue su hora á la canalla.
El amor bajo la luz eléctrica	Anon	es	1865	Don't rely on electric light if you're looking for cloth or a woman: No elijas mujer ni tela / Á la luz artificial, / Porque la una y la otra / Grandes chascos suelen dar.
Cantata nacional	Josep Anselm Clavé	es	1864	In his collection, Flores de Estío, the Catalan master utters Hispanophile sentiments which many prefer to forget: ¡Gloria á ESPAÑA! dó en paz hoy florecen / Con las ciencias, la industria y las artes; / Dó el progreso derrumba baluartes / Que en talleres se ven transformar.
When Birmingham is a seaport town	Andy Casserley / Trad.	en	1851?	Set to a lively tune.
Coplas novas y divertidas las cuals esplican los mals ratos que solen donar las pusas los polls y las chinchas com nu veurà lo que no sirà siego	Ramon Barrull (Lérida / Lleida, C19th, printed by Coromines) / The Singing Organ-Grinder	ca	1850	Broadside ballad about vermin: Las chinchas es cosa bruta, / Conforme hos he dit; / Perque se solen posar, / A los pots y banchs dels llits.
Trobo divertit sens pecar de la merda y del cagar	Anon (Lérida / Lleida, C19th, printed by Coromines) / The Singing Organ-Grinder	ca	1850	An utterly filthy song in happily impenetrable Catalan: Lo vostre cul cuan cagueu, sembla unas castañolas / Your arse when it shits, sounds like castanets.
Chiriví	Anón	ca	1843	Cannibal song from Barcelona's Jamancia revolt: á Cristina y Narvaez / y á tots los moderats / dintre de una paella / los freixirém plegats.
Per fi ya enarbolat / veyem lo san pendó, / quens diu Societat, / Fraternitat y Unió.	Societat de Teixidós de Barcelona	ca	1840	Himno del primer sindicato en España, la (barcelonesa) Sociedad de Tejedores / Anthem of the first trade union in Spain, the (Barcelona) Society of Weavers
¡Año fatal! ¡Año atroz! – (Pre)juicio del año 1833	Anon	es	1832	Premonitions of the First Carlist War from an almanac: ¿Oís zumbar el cañon? / ¿Oís como cruje el parche? / ¡Quede estragos! ¡Qué de horrores! / Temblad míseros mortales.
El cura enfermo	Anon	es	1800	Priestly love, Cadiz style: Estando un curita malito en la cama, / a la media noche llamó a la criada. / -¿Qué tiene el curita, tan deprisa llama? / -Quiero chocolate, lo quiero en la cama.
Los ayres fijos: poema didáctico en seis cantos	José Viera y Clavijo	es	1784	Ode to a hot-air balloon: Moradores de Nesle ¿Que es aquello / Que veis venir rasgando el Horizonte? / No es la ascencion de Ganimedes bello, / Ni el precipicio del audaz Faetonte, / Del Iris matizado no es destello, / Ni el Pegaso que dexa el doble monte; / Es la Nave Aërostática velera / De Argonautas que surcan la atmosféra.
Die Gedachte sind frei / De gedachten zijn vrij		de nl	1780s	Freiheitslied from SW Germany (?)
La locura más discreta que se dice executó la villa de Níjar del obispado de Almería, el día trece de septiembre de este presente año de 1759	Diego Ventura Rejón y Lucas	es	1759	Vía Ortega y Gasset, a tale of popular madness: Con aquestos desbaratos / toda casa esta assolada, / no dejando tales tratos, / cazos, sillas, platos, nada, / ni aun la nada entre dos platos.
Ford V8	Enrique Jardiel Poncela / The Singing Organ-Grinder	es		Cuban song in praise of Henry Ford's motors: ¿Y no callé siempre y siempre me callo / los contados días que tienes un fallo?

Update: 2023/03/06