ABSTRACT

From the 1940s to 2000s, musician and union educator Joe Glazer earned the moniker ‘Labor’s Troubadour’ by composing, performing, studying, and recording work and union songs. Although less well known outside of labour circles than Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, Glazer’s music told the history of, and provided a soundtrack for, many struggles of the twentieth century US labour movement. In 1950, Glazer wrote ‘Too Old to Work,’ a protest song inspired by the United Automobile Workers’ campaign for occupational pensions. Four days after the song was adopted by striking Chrysler workers in Michigan, the manufacturer gave in to the union’s demands. The song was soon picked up by an array of organisers, educators, politicians, and musicians, becoming arguably the most significant ‘pension song’ in the US labor movement. Drawing analytical tools from age studies, labour studies, and folklore studies, this interdisciplinary study examines the genealogy, aesthetic, impact, and legacy of ‘Too Old to Work’ in the US and beyond. As well as re-evaluating Glazer’s influential, if underappreciated career, this article unpacks some of the complexities of autoworkers’ post-war pension campaign, draws attention to autoworker music, and outlines a remarkably rich transatlantic tradition of pension- and age-related labour music.

摘要

从 1940 年代到 2000 年代，音乐家和工会教育家乔·格雷泽通过创作、表演、研究和录制工作和工会歌曲赢得了“工党游吟诗人”的绰号。尽管在劳工圈子之外不如 Woody Guthrie 或 Pete Seeger 知名，但 Glazer 的音乐讲述了 20 世纪美国劳工运动的许多斗争的历史，并为其提供了配乐。1950 年，格雷泽创作了一首受美国汽车工人联合会职业养老金运动启发的抗议歌曲《Too Old to Work》。这首歌被密歇根罢工的克莱斯勒工人采用四天后，制造商屈服于工会的要求。这首歌很快就被一系列组织者、教育家、政治家和音乐家所接受，可以说成为美国劳工运动中最重要的“养老金歌曲”。这项跨学科研究从年龄研究、劳动研究和民俗研究中汲取分析工具，考察了美国及其他地区“太老不能工作”的谱系、美学、影响和遗产。除了重新评估 Glazer 有影响力但被低估的职业生涯，本文还揭示了汽车工人战后养老金运动的一些复杂性，引起了对汽车工人音乐的关注，并概述了跨大西洋与养老金和年龄相关的劳动的非常丰富的传统音乐。