#weallstandtogether — Public Fediverse posts

Way back sometime in the latter half of the 1980s, we watched Rupert and the Frog Song on VHS and heard We All Stand Together within it for the very first time.

We still remember how excited our dad was for us to hear the song for the very first time, and how much we enjoyed the music and lyrics 🎶

It wasn't until much later in life that we started to realise just how powerful and defiant some lyrics of the song verses were, whilst others were... noticeably less so.

The first verse begins as follows:

Win or lose, sink or swim
One thing is certain, we'll never give in
Side by side, hand in hand
We all stand together

We don't know what meaning(s) Paul McCartney intended with such lyrics, but to us this isn't just some song about friendship for kids: it's a call to stand, march, and support each other, no matter what happens.

Given Paul's working class background, it's perhaps no surprise that it feels inherently pro-social, pro-worker, and pro-union. It's positive, progressive, and powerful: exactly the kind of message that people need to inspire them to proect.

Given the strength of the first verse, it's perplexing to us how suddenly the tone shifts in the second, which begins:

Play the game, fight the fight

"Play the game" has multiple meanings, but it's likely about conforming to the rules of the establishment. In order to win the game, you have to:

• obey the rules;
• be on your best "sporting" behaviour; and
• not do anything controversial that might lead to a penalty for your side, particularly as that could cost you the entire game.

Beyond this, folks may even need to play the long-game, where you patiently plan, prepare, and outperform your opponents, particularly political ones, in order to achieve your goals.

The lyrics then call for the listener to "fight the fight". This seems likely to be the "good fight", which in the context of the times would likely be the ongoing battle for workers' rights against a government that considered unions and workers to be the enemy.

Okay. So maybe this is a bit grim for a young listener, but given all the obstacles stacked up against the working class, who were often treated like obstinate children themselves, it would make sense that the song encourages caution here. It was a different time. We can understand this, even if we don't fully agree.

What we don't understand is the apparent flippancy of the next line:

But what's the point on a beautiful night?

What the actual heck, song?!

Okay, okay, okay.

Maybe we're being too hard on the song here. Perhaps it's remarking that sometimes you need to take a break from the fight every once in a while for yourself to recharge, so you can keep fighting.

However, if this was the intended meaning, it's not been implemented well, in our opinion.

The phrasing "what's the point" makes it sound like the entire purpose of fighting is ultimately meaningless. That's not a positive message for kids: that's what you'd expect from the resignation speech of someone who's burnt themselves out fighting over decades to achieve their goals, only to begin to question why they were even fighting!

And yet, the verse then ends on:

Arm in arm, hand in hand
We all stand together

Maybe the song had a momentarily loss of hope, but then regained it, and is once again supporting the idea of unity, solidarity, and the strength of the group.

Alternatively, the song never actually recovered from the loss of hope, but is pushing on regardless, as we all need to support each other, even if we never achieve our end goals.

By going "arm in arm" and "hand in hand", it's both a show of group strength and an acknowledgement that everyone within the group needs some form of support from others around them.

...

Okay... so… why have we written all this, particularly right now?

There are lots of answers we could give, but for us it ultimately comes down to these points:

• This song is inherently one of hope, but it could be so much stronger with a little rewording.
• Times are bleak right now for millions of people and people need a little hope.

We've had ideas ourselves on how we might reword the lyrics, but we're not a song writer. Heck, we're not a good writer writer… as this awful sentence no doubt highlights.

Our ideas are full of anger, rage, and a feeling of inevitable, unavoidable despair for all the people we know we won't be able to help, support, or save 🥺😞

In a way, we're perhaps a bit like the second verse: we expect to keep fighting battles not because we expect to win any of them, but because we need to support those around us regardless.

We honestly want to ask how you would reword the song to strengthen it.

• What would you change?
• Why would you make those changes?

Right now, our anger would turn the second verse into:

Fuck their game! Time to fight!
Stop ceding ground to the bigoted right!
Arm in arm; hand in hand
We must stand together!

Not exactly the most-inspiring version it could be 😅🤦‍♀️

What would your version of "We All Stand Together" be?

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