About

This site is devoted to re-energizing social change movements by offering them readily sing-able participatory songs. They may be simple songs like “Down by the Riverside,” or they may be songs with “message” verses and  easy choruses like “This Land is Your Land,” or they may be call-and-response songs like “Ain’t Afraid of Your Jail ‘Cause I Want My Freedom,” or they may be “zipper” songs into which new verses can be readily “zipped” like “We Shall Not Be Moved.”

The object is to reclaim one of the great tools of past social change campaigns: songs that weld crowds of people into movements through shared participation in singing.

 

Bergel Headshot 2Peter Bergel is a lifelong social change activist and song leader. He wants to connect with other musicians who are interested in working to re-introduce participatory singing into today’s social change movements. Email him.

4 thoughts on “About

  1. barb

    I am trying to compose a book of zipper songs for peace and social justice actions. Is there somewhere where there is a list of them?

    Reply
    1. peter Post author

      Try Peace is Flowing Like a River
      Any number of civil rights songs like Down By the Riverside or Turn Me Around
      One Pair of Hands
      God’s Counting on Me
      Does this help? Sorry I didn’t get to this sooner.

      Reply
  2. Bob Irwin

    The new songbook from Peter and Annie Blood-Patterson, authors of “Rise Up Singing,” is due out this fall (perhaps already available). Those two songbooks are the first places I’d look for the oldest and newest “zipper songs.”

    Reply

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