Revisiting `Sing' Magazine's 1954 Issues

During the McCarthy Era in the United States, a magazine that encouraged the writing of non-commercially-motivated topical protest folk songs, Sing magazine, began publishing in May 1954. In their first editorial, its editors--Eric Winter and John Hasted--wrote that the magazine's goal was to distribute "as widely as possible" the "songs which are produced in the course of...struggle for a better life" and that Sing "will always seek to work in the closest harmony" with the UK's Workers' Music Association, that had been founded in 1936.

Among the non-commercial topical protest folk songs that were published in Sing magazine's four issues of 1954, that were apparently not heard as much by U.S. corporate radio station listeners during the 1950's as were the commercial pop songs sung by Elvis Presley and The Kingston Trio, were non-commercial topical protest folk songs with the following titles:

1. "The Atom Bomb and the Hydrogen" (by Leon Fung);

2. "Talking Rearmament" (by John Hasted);

3. "The Ballad of Jomo Kenyatta" (by Johnny Ambrose);

4. "The Rosenbergs Were Murdered" (by Eric Winter and John Hasted);

5. "In Contempt" (by Aaron Kramer and Betty Sanders);

6. "Ghost Soldiers" (by an anonymous African-American soldier);

7. "Johnson's Motorcar";

8. "When Asia Came to Geneva: A Tribute to Chou En Lai" (by John Hasted);

9. "Ballad of Ho Chi Minh" (by Ewan MacColl);

10. "The Dove" (adaptation by Ewan MacColl);

11. "Conscripts Forward!" (by John Hasted);

12. "It's Only Propaganda" (by Ewan MacColl); and

13. "Where, O Where Is Our James Connolly".

Among the editorials and articles published in Sing magazine's 1954 issues were the following:

1. An editorial titled "Ban the Bomb";

2. An editorial titled "The Rosenbergs Were Murdered"; and

3. An article by Patrick Galvin, titled "Songs of the Easter Rising."