Singing for Socialism

In 1963, Race Mathews edited a book of ‘Socialist Songs’ for the Fabian Society of Victoria. In his introduction, Mathews, a future Labor member of both the Australian Federal Parliament and the Victorian Legislative Assembly and a Cabinet Minister for nearly a decade in the reformist Cain government in Victoria, lamented the loss of a tradition of singing for socialism. ‘The student socialist movements of the thirties and forties had a singing tradition’, he wrote, ‘those who belonged to them may forget the politics, but they do not forget the songs. During the early fifties this tradition was lost … ’ ‘Somewhere along the line’, he continued, ‘ a generation of young socialists moved on without teaching its songs to its successors, and a chain stretching back to the first formation of the Labor Clubs was broken’ (Mathews 1963: 1). ¹ Mathews’ volume was what we would nowadays call an act of historical reconstruction but the chain he sought to repair was linked to a more distant past.