The Popular Wobbly

"The Popular Wobbly" is a labor song written by the Finnish-American songwriter T-Bone Slim. It is a parody of the 1917 hit "They Go Wild Simply Wild Over Me" by Joseph McCarthy and Fred Fisher.[1][2]

"The Popular Wobbly"
Song
Published1920
Composer(s)Fred Fisher
Lyricist(s)T-Bone Slim

"The Popular Wobbly" first appeared in the 1920 edition of the Little Red Songbook published by the Industrial Workers of the World.[1] Its title referred to the "Wobbly" nickname that was often given to IWW members.[3]

The song was revived during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Candie Carawan wrote new lyrics that told about her 1960 arrest while taking part in desegregation sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee.[4] The Guy and Candie Carawan version is known as They Go Wild Over Me.[5] An adaptation of "The Popular Wobbly" was also included in a 1931 songbook published by radio personality Ernest Iverson.[6]

Pete Seeger,[7] Utah Phillips[1] and Joe Glazer[8] are among the well-known singers who have performed the song.

References
They Go Wild Simply Wild Over Me 1917
  1. The Popular Wobbly (T-Bone Slim) folkarchive.de. Retrieved October 28, 2013.
  2. They Go Wild Simply Wild Over Me by Joseph McCarthy and Fred Fisher, (New York, NY: McCarthy and Fisher, 1917).
  3. Songs of the Wobblies (Detroit: Labor Arts, 1954).
  4. Sing For Freedom by Guy and Candie Carawan, (Bethlehem, PA: Sing Out Corp.,1990).
  5. They Go Wild Over Me (Candie Anderson-Caravan) folkarchive.de. Retrieved October 28, 2013.
  6. Two Hundred Old Time Favorite Songs (Omaha: Ernest N. Iverson, 1931).
  7. The Popular Wobbly si.edu. Retrieved October 28, 2013.
  8. Songs of the Wobblies Internet Archive. Retrieved 10 January 2015.

Streaming audio

Books

Lyrics

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