Songs and Poems

Solidarity Forever

Song. By Ralph Chaplin. 1915. One of the most popular labor songs.
Themes: Art & Music, Labor, Organizing

“Solidarity Forever,” written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915, is perhaps the most famous union anthem after “The Internationale.” It is sung to the tune of “John Brown’s Body” and is inspired by “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Although it was written as a song for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), other union movements, such as the AFL-CIO, have adopted the song as their own.

Ralph Chaplin (poet, artist, writer and organizer for the IWW) finished writing the song on Jan. 15, 1915, just 6 months before his fellow IWW songwriter Joe Hill was executed. Chaplin wrote “Solidarity Forever” for the march led by Lucy Parsons on Jan. 17, 1915 in Chicago. Ralph Chaplin said “I wanted a song to be full of revolutionary fervour and to have a chorus that was singing and defiant.”

The song has been performed in recent years by musicians such as the late Utah Phillips, and was redone by Emcee Lynx. It is still commonly sung at union meetings and rallies in the United States, Australia, and Canada, and has also been sung at conferences of the Australian Labor Party and the Canadian New Democratic Party. This may have also inspired the hymn of the consumer cooperative movement, “The Battle Hymn of Cooperation”, which is sung to the same tune. [Description adapted from Union Song.]

Listen to a recording.


When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
But the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.


But the union makes us strong.


While the union makes us strong.


They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
That the union makes us strong.


For the union makes us strong.