A May Day Playlist

Whether your Labor Day falls on May 1 or the first Monday in September, the core concept remains the same: honoring the workers who keep countries running. In this decade, we’re facing another cultural reexamination of work—one perhaps best summarized by a TikTok sound that has somehow been attributed to both “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and James Baldwin: “Darling, I’ve told you several times before, I have no ‘dream job,’ I do not dream of labor.” 

In the last century, labor movements challenged the nature of work, fought for the humanity of the worker, and ultimately questioned the idea of a fulfilling life—and who was entitled to live such a life. It’s a theme that came up continually for composers, many of whom, despite working in a medium that catered to the wealthy industrialists who served as figureheads for inhumane working conditions, sided with the workers. This playlist brings together a selection of works by those composers, as well as those of a few working today who have picked up the thread…and one unlikely late Romantic who stumbled ass-backwards into the cause.