Running Songs: The Blackleg Miner

During the nineteenth century, and indeed earlier, a competitive run was often referred to as a 'foot race', presumably to distinguish the human event from a horse race. Foot races, even before the birth of modern athletics, were sometimes a big deal attracting thousands of spectators (see examples here). Still extensive research (OK I just looked at the considerable archive of folk songs at  Traditional Songs and similar sites) has only uncovered one song that specifically mentions a foot race.

Surprizingly (to me) it is the famous strike song, The Blackleg Miner, which includes the lines:

'Oh, Delaval is a terrible place.
They rub wet clay in the blackleg's face,
And aroond the heaps they run a foot race,
To catch the blackleg miner!'

The song apparently dates back to a miners strike in 1844, undermined by 'scab' strikebreakers who in mining areas became known as blacklegs - those who ignored strike calls to work in the mines were of course identifiable by coal dust on their legs and elsewhere. Stakes were high in this period with thousands of strikers and their families evicted from their homes in Northumberland (Seaton Delavel is a village in this area which had a colliery), and violent threats to those undermining the strikes. Hence the threat to 'rub wet clay in the blackleg's face' (or worse) and to 'run a foot race,
To catch the blackleg miner'.

Local records document the popularity of foot racing in this period in the North East of England. On July 18 1842, 'A foot race, for £150 aside, took place at Butcher Race, near Durham, between two men, named Atkinson and Whitehead. Nearly 15,000 persons were present, the event exciting great interest. Atkinson fell about 20 yards from the goal' (Local records; or, Historical register of remarkable events, which have occurred in Northumberland & Durham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Berwick-upon-tweed, 1832-1857). No doubt events like this were in the mind of the anonymous songwriter when they coined the image of miners racing to catch the strikebreaker.

Incidentally, I heard this song performed last week by folk band 'A Grande Scheme', playing atthe Free Woodland Folk Music Festival in Brockley Nature Reserve as part of the Telegraph Hill Festival in South East London.

More Songs About Running:

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Fugazi's Long Distance Runner
Stars of Track and Field are Beautiful People - Belle & Sebastian

The Jogger - Bobby Bare

Runnin' - Naughty Boy with Beyoncé

Jogging for Jesus

Songs About Running (5): Jogging for Jesus

You know when you are out running and some one heckles you, and of course you don't lose a step, but you spend the next couple of miles thinking about the really smart reply you should have come out with?

Last week I had my first religious heckle, with some guy shouting out that I should look to save my soul rather than my body, and that I should stop jogging. Obviously that was plain rude, I run not jog, mate!

I wasn't going to hang around to debate the fine points of theology, but first I had an anti-religious wave of anger. I could have taken him down straight away with some thoughts on 'the problem of evil' - you know, if God is all-powerful how come He allows terrible things to happen like war, famine and pumped up guys shouting at passers by.

But then as I calmed down, I thought 'hold on, surely you can take care of your body AND your soul?'. If you're of a religious persuasion, shouldn't you make the best use of the legs and lungs that the Good Lord gave you? And in fact, some of the greatest runners have been righteous believers, I mean haven't you even seen Chariots of Fire?

And then I realized something else, that while he had included me in his line of fire and brimstone as I ran past  him, his rant had first been directed at a woman running towards him. So really it was the old old story of some shouty bloke hiding behind religion to tell women what to do with their bodies.

By the time I'd worked all this out, the miles had ticked by, it would have been much quicker if I'd simply retorted - you need to get Jogging for Jesus!

Jogging for Jesus is a fine slice of gospel funk by Leslie Harris and the House of Fire from 1980, a time when at the height of the 'jogging boom' in the USA there were many running-related songs. But unlike, say, the similarly themed The Jogger by Bobby Bare from the same period, this is actually a great piece of uplifting music. 

'Early one Sunday morning, Jesus came into my room

He woke me up saying, we're going to have a run

I jumped out of my bed, put on my jogging shoes,

My wife woke up saying, what are we going to do

I told her I'm jogging for Jesus

I am running with the Lord'

More Songs About Running:

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Fugazi's Long Distance Runner
Stars of Track and Field are Beautiful People - Belle & Sebastian

The Jogger - Bobby Bare

Runnin' - Naughty Boy with Beyoncé

Record Sleeve Athletics:

Musique - Keep on Jumpin'

4-Play - Olympic Rap

Sergio Mendes - Olympia

Giorgo Moroder - Reach Out

Skids - Days in Europa
Three Degrees - The Runner

Blackbyrds - Action

The Associates - Affectionate Punch

Santana - Marathon

Joan Armatrading - Track Record & Roxy Music - Flesh and Blood

Carl Lewis

BBC Sporting Sounds Effects

Songs about running (4): Runnin' - Naughty Boy with Beyoncé

Sure running's good for your general health, but is it bad for your music taste? All I know is I've developed a soft spot for uplifting pop anthems of the kind that you hear on spotify running playlists, at the gym or the finishing line of fun runs. A classic example would be Naughty Boy's recent Runnin' (Lose it All). Well it's got Beyoncé guesting on vocals, and if that's not classy enough for a boy from Watford the video features underwater running like some crazy Alberto Salazar training session. OK maybe it's slightly faked but hey...

'Runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin'

Runnin', runnin', runnin'

Ain't runnin' from myself no more

Together we'll win it all

I ain't runnin', runnin', runnin', runnin'

Runnin', runnin', runnin'

Ain't runnin' from myself no more

I'm ready to face it all

If I lose myself, I lose it all

I've outrun the fears that chased, they're standing still

I'm running still, I'm running still'

(ok, maybe this is more in the 'songs using running as a metaphor for escape and endurance' category than actually about running as such!)

Update

The song now soundtracks a Chanel advert (August 2017) featuring Kristen Stewart escaping from some pesky fabric and running for freedom.

Got to say Kristen shows some good running form here. She has been spotted out and about running in various places in real life, so she obviously knows the score.

More Songs About Running:

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Fugazi's Long Distance Runner

Stars of Track and Field are Beautiful People - Belle & Sebastian

The Jogger - Bobby Bare

Record Sleeve Athletics:

Musique - Keep on Jumpin'

4-Play - Olympic Rap

Sergio Mendes - Olympia

Giorgo Moroder - Reach Out

Skids - Days in Europa
Three Degrees - The Runner

Blackbyrds - Action

The Associates - Affectionate Punch

Santana - Marathon

Joan Armatrading - Track Record & Roxy Music - Flesh and Blood

Carl Lewis

BBC Sporting Sounds Effects

Songs about Running (3): The Jogger by Bobby Bare

'The Jogger' by Bobby Bare was a novelty country hit in the US top thirty in 1983. It's an odd song to say the least - starting off with a homophobic trucker bemoaning having to share the road with a guy: 

'dressed like they do in baby blue, 

With shortie shorts and a headband too,

I yelled Sweetie I bet that you are the hit of the men's room locker... 

But I'm a runnin' late with an overload, 

So get your Adidas off a this road'.

But as the trucker accelerates the jogger gets faster and faster and leaves him behind. Well maybe that's because the jogger is apparently Jesus Christ himself:

'Then I see him joggin' up into the sky

And he yells hey thanks for the exercise

I hope that losin' this race was not too shockin'

Ya see my dad says heaven's no place to run

and I try to be an obedient son

So I have to come down to earth to do my joggin'

(lyrics by S. Silverstein)

Bizarre, but then this is the man who also sang the born again football anthem 'Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through The Goalposts Of Life)"

More Songs About Running:

Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Fugazi's Long Distance Runner
Stars of Track and Field are Beautiful People - Belle & Sebastian

Record Sleeve Athletics:

Musique - Keep on Jumpin'

4-Play - Olympic Rap

Sergio Mendes - Olympia

Giorgo Moroder - Reach Out

Skids - Days in Europa
Three Degrees - The Runner

Blackbyrds - Action

The Associates - Affectionate Punch

Santana - Marathon

Joan Armatrading - Track Record & Roxy Music - Flesh and Blood

Carl Lewis

BBC Sporting Sounds Effects

Songs about running (2): Running Up That Hill

So it was a muddy Saturday morning yesterday and I went for my usual 5k parkrun in Hilly Fields. Due to flooding part of the course is closed which means a diversion and an even longer run up that hill than usual. Not only that but the lower reaches of the hill are getting like a bog so that the foot has to be lifted from the mud. 

There's only one song that will do and that's.... 'Running Up that Hill' by Kate Bush

And if I only could, 

I'd make a deal with God, 

And I'd get him to swap our places, 

Be running up that road, 

Be running up that hill, 

With no problems.

Kate Bush actually lived very near to Hilly Fields in Wickham Road at the start of her career, so no doubt visited the park. No evidence that she ran there though! In fact while I think that running is the height of cool, some people are too cool to run and I imagine Kate Bush is one of them. But the song did feature in the closing ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics, a new version of it being played while the dancers/performers built an actual hill (well it was more of a pyramid really).

Songs about Running (1): Fugazi's Long Distance Runner

There are thousands of songs with running in the title, but most most of them aren't really about running. More about fleeing - running from commitment, running from danger, running for the hills...

But Fugazi's post-hardcore anthem Long Distance Runner, from their 1995 album 'Red Medicine',  sounds like it was written by someone who knows what they're talking about. Not sure who in Fugazi was a runner, but pretty sure somebody must have been. I guess you could draw a link between songwriter Ian MacKaye's straight edge philosophy (no drink, no drugs) and a hardcore fitness regime. The opening line of this song would make a great name for a running blog, if anyone fancies starting another one!

The farther I go the less I know

One foot goes in front of the other

It all boils around to not hanging around

To keep moving in front of the gravity

The answer is there the answer is there

but there is not a fixed position

It keeps moving along so I keep coming along

and that's why I'm a long distance runner

and if I stop to catch my breath

I might catch a piece of death

I can't keep your pace if I want to finish this race

My fight's not with it

It's with the gravity

Long distance runner