Resources

• Cam­paigns we support
• Links to exter­nal songbanks
• Oth­er political/community choirs and singing groups
• Musi­cians, singers and songwriters
• Oth­er use­ful organisations

Do please let us know if you have sug­ges­tions for oth­er web­sites we should link to!

Campaigns we support

• Black Lives Matter
  • Jus­tice for Sheku Bayou
• Cam­paign Against Arms Trade
• Cli­mate crisis 
  • XR
  • Fri­days for Future
  • Stop Cli­mate Chaos Scotland
• Con­sci­en­tious Objec­tors’ Day
• Inter­na­tion­al Work­ers’ Memo­r­i­al Day and May Day
• Justice4Grenfell
• Nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment
  • Scot­tish CND
  • ICAN
• Pales­tine sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port for Gaza
• Sup­port for refugees and asy­lum seekers
• Sup­port for the vic­tims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster

Links to external songbanks

• Anti­war songs
  A col­lec­tion of over 3000 paci­fist and anti­mil­i­tarist songs from all over the world and of any time, based on free con­tri­bu­tions by read­ers and col­lab­o­ra­tors (com­men­tary large­ly in Italian).
• Quak­er­song
  Web­site of Annie Pat­ter­son and Peter Blood, cre­ators of Rise Up Singing, North America’s favorite group singing songbook.
• Reclaim­ing Chants @ Weave and Spin
  Lyrics to chants from the Reclaim­ing pagan activist com­mu­ni­ty, co-found­ed by Starhawk.
• Sing Out!
  Mag­a­zine and resource cen­tre devot­ed to (main­ly north Amer­i­can) folk song.
• Songs for Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion
  Envi­ron­men­tal songs! Envi­ron­men­tal music! Nature songs! Earth songs!
• Songs for the Great Turn­ing
  Songs which can be used in the inter­ac­tive group process­es devel­oped by Joan­na Macy known as the Work That Recon­nects, which facil­i­tates, a shift toward a life-enhanc­ing human pres­ence on plan­et Earth.
• Union Songs
  Rebel songs, slave songs, songs of free­dom, work songs, songs of dis­sent, songs of strug­gle, protest songs. They are the work of famous poets as well as men and women whose names have been forgotten.

Other political/community choirs and singing groups

• Big Big Sing
• Calder Val­ley Voic­es
  World music songs, with social sen­si­bil­i­ties. Gospel, African, East European.
• Chechele World Music Choir
  York-based acapel­la choir spe­cial­is­ing in singing tra­di­tion­al music from around the world.
• Côr Cochion Caerdy­dd
  (Cardiff Reds’ Choir) came togeth­er in 1983, when events in Chile, South Africa, and at home in Wales demand­ed that they use their voic­es in protest.
• Côr Gob­aith
  Aberys­t­wyth street choir, singing and cam­paign­ing for peace and social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice near and far since 2006.
• Har­monise
  Edin­burgh-based choir.
• Joy­ous Choir
• Lon­don Gay Men’s Cho­rus
  “Well worth Com­ing Out for.”
• Loud and Proud
  Edinburgh’s LGBT Choir. It pro­vides a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­der peo­ple and their friends to sing and socialise together.
• Nation­al Street Choir Fes­ti­val
  (for­mer­ly the Street Music Festival)
• Not­ting­ham Clar­i­on Choir
  Formed in 1988 as a result of a project of local musi­cians to make the vinyl album Eng­lish Rebels, cel­e­brat­ing the rad­i­cal tra­di­tions in British politics.
• Open Com­mu­ni­ty Singing Group
  Edin­burgh-based singing group led by Pen­ny Stone. Meets week­ly on Thurs­days from 18.30–20.30 at Eric Lid­dell Cen­tre on Morn­ing­side Road.
• Out Aloud, Sheffield’s Gay Choir
  Out Aloud is Sheffield’s Gay Choir. It was formed in 2006 and enables les­bians, gay men, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­dered peo­ple in Sheffield to enjoy singing as a com­mu­ni­ty. There are no audi­tions and you don’t need to be an expe­ri­enced singer or read music.
• PiH Glas­gow
• Pink Singers
  London’s Les­bian and Gay Com­mu­ni­ty Chorus.
• https://www.portobellocommunitychoir.org/
• Raised Voic­es
  Lon­don-based polit­i­cal choir of women and men.
• San Ghan­ny
  San Ghan­ny which means ‘We Shall Sing’ in Ara­bic. This Edin­burgh-based group came togeth­er to trav­el to the West Bank, to meet peo­ple and learn of their day to day expe­ri­ence under occu­pa­tion and to sing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with them.
• Sangschule
  Tra­di­tion­al song group based in Lin­lith­gow, West Loth­i­an. They wel­come any­body who enjoys singing with oth­ers and who is inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the Scot­tish musi­cal tradition.
• Sea Green Singers
  an Oxford-based singing group of free­dom and green songs. (The group is named after the colour of the rib­bons worn by the Lev­ellers, a rad­i­cal move­ment with­in Cromwell’s Mod­el Army.)
• Sheffield Social­ist Choir
  With 60–80 mem­bers, they learn and sing songs which reflect the fight for free­dom, human rights and jus­tice around the world.
• Songtribe
  Edinburgh’s vibrant com­mu­ni­ty choir with a big heart and soul, led by musi­cal direc­tor, Ali Burns.
• Song­works
  A com­mu­ni­ty of singers who meet week­ly to sing for the sheer joy of it. They meet at the Colum­cille Cen­tre, Morn­ing­side, Edinburgh
• Straw­ber­ry Thieves
  Polit­i­cal choir based in South-east Lon­don. Their site has words, sheet music and midi files for many of their songs.
• Tad­ha­mon
  Sheffield-based Tad­ha­mon Singers were formed in 2018. They are a group of women who sing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Pales­tin­ian struggle.
• Wild­fire
  Edin­burgh-based group, open to women of all ages and back­grounds who like or want to learn to sing in a col­lec­tive group. They sing polit­i­cal songs, songs of strug­gle, peace and free­dom as well as Scot­tish tra­di­tion­al mate­r­i­al. Demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion making.

Musicians, singers and songwriters

• Bil­ly Bragg
• Dick Gaugh­an
  Infor­ma­tion about Dick Gaugh­an, a song library, a full discog­ra­phy with his­tor­i­cal and bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion, reviews, tour sched­ules, etc.
• Emma’s Rev­o­lu­tion
  Duo with Pat Humphries and Sandy Opa­tow). Writer of Peace, Salaam Shalom and Nev­er Turn­ing Back.
• Hol­ly Near
• Judy Small
  Aus­tralian singer-song­writer, now a judge
• Leon Rossel­son
• Jane Lewis
• Lit­tle­weed Music
  Web­site of Camil­la Can­can­ta­ta, com­pos­er and impro­vis­er, who wrote the ora­to­rio “Tri­dent: A British War Crime”, and “Car­bon Chronicles”.
• Melanie DeMore
• Peg­gy Seeger
• Pen­ny Stone
• Sweet Hon­ey in the Rock
• Woody Guthrie

Other useful organisations

• Nat­ur­al Voice Net­work
  We believe that singing is everyone’s birthright and we are com­mit­ted to teach­ing styles that are accept­ing and inclu­sive of all, regard­less of musi­cal expe­ri­ence and ability.
• Polit­i­cal Song Col­lec­tion
  Based at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Glas­gow: “a major col­lec­tion of mate­ri­als relat­ing to polit­i­cal song and songs of social jus­tice. The col­lec­tion com­pris­es print, man­u­script, and audio­vi­su­al media, dat­ing from the 18th cen­tu­ry to the present day.”
• WRPM (Women’s Rev­o­lu­tions Per Minute)
  Has sup­plied music per­formed, com­posed and pro­duced by women since 1977. WRPM sup­ports Inde­pen­dent Women Musi­cians and their cat­a­logue includes record­ings by many hard-to-find artists, includ­ing Hol­ly Near, Judy Small and Sweet Hon­ey in The Rock.
• Cam­paign Choirs Net­work
  A loose affil­i­a­tion of like-mind­ed choirs across the UK shar­ing a belief in a bet­ter world for all and ded­i­cat­ed to tak­ing action by singing about it!
• Glob­al Non­vi­o­lent Action Data­base
  This web­site has a huge bank of infor­ma­tion about non­vi­o­lent strug­gles from all over the world. They are cat­e­gorised in var­i­ous help­ful ways and eval­u­at­ed accord­ing to suc­cess cri­te­ria. Plen­ty of inspi­ra­tion here!