ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the links between workers’ songs and politics. Specifically, it focuses on a song written by a known navvy and author named Ferdinand Iversen. His authorship contains a series of song lyrics describing the navvies’ life and working conditions – most of them about working on the railroads or at power plants in Norway during the first half of the 20th century. In this chapter, song lyrics are examined as political expressions, drawing on the politico-aesthetic theories of philosopher Jacques Rancière. The object of the study is a certain navvy song by Iversen that depicts a certain era of the Rjukan industrial adventure, as it gives the working forces a narrative of their own. The primary aim is to elucidate how aesthetic expressions convey multivocal aspects in relation to social and political history.
