Judi Bari was someone I and many other people really looked up to for a lot of reasons, and her premature death was a major blow to the environmental movement and the movement for social change as well.
"If the great Phil Ochs were to rise from the dead today, he would probably be hailed as the new David Rovics."
Andy Kershaw, BBC
Story behind the song
Judi Bari was someone I and many other people really looked up to for a lot of reasons, and her premature death was a major blow to the environmental movement and the movement for social change as well. She understood that these two movements are fundamentally inseparable, and her work as an organizer, writer, speaker, and musician is a testament to her broad activist vision. When we have our Truth Commission, perhaps we will know the details of exactly who took the lives of Judi Bari, Anna Mae Aquash, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King and so many others of this society's best and brightest, who lost their lives in the struggle to make a better world.
Lyrics
(based on the song "Joe Hill" by Earl Robinson, updated by David Rovics and Robert Hoyt)
I dreamed I saw Judi Bari last night
Alive as you and me
Says I, "but Judi, you're two years dead"
"I never died," said she
"I never died," said she
"The timber bosses killed you, Judi"
"They bombed you, Judi, says I"
"Takes more than bombs to kill a woman"
Says Judi, "I didn't die"
Says Judi, "I didn't die"
"In Oakland, Judi, by God," says I
Her standing by my bed
"They maimed you with a pipe bomb"
Says Judi, "but I ain't dead"
Says Judi, "but I ain't dead"
And standing there as big as life
And smiling with her eyes
Says Judi, "what they forgot to kill
"Went on to organize
"Went on to organize"
From Garberville up to Maine
In every logging town
Where folks stand up to corporate greed
There Judi can be found
There Judi can be found
(Repeat first verse)
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Created December, 1998
Copyright David Rovics 1998, all rights reserved
