La Pasionaria (for Dolores Ibarruri) Track

(chorus)
La Pasionaria
Remembered by all in Spain
Dolores Ibarruri
Her spirit lives again.
(verses)
Her father was a miner
Who worked in Vizcaya mines
And in homes of wives of businessmen
She worked as a maid to survive.
She married a miner at twenty
And had a kid at twenty-one
But on her husband’s low wages
Paying rent was extremely hard. (chorus)

She discovered the works of Marx
And the reason for her poverty
And why all miners suffered
And how to win their liberty.
And after the miners struck
Her husband was often jailed
But she managed to raise two kids
And her cause she never failed. (chorus)

Reluctantly she spoke
At her Party’s public meetings
And thousands were inspired
By her passionate oratory.
So they arrested her in Madrid
In 1931
Then released her for three months
Before locking her up again. (chorus)

In jail ‘’till 1933
She organized prisoners
And worked for a general strike
And lived like a fugitive.
But when after a Popular Front was formed
She was elected to the Parliament
And warned the Spanish people
Of the danger from the fascists. (chorus)

But in July 1936
Franco used Moroccan troops
And oil from U.S. companies
To attempt a fascist coup.
Hitler and Mussolini
Sent Franco troops and planes
But inspired by Dolores’ courage
Came the International Brigades. (chorus)

For three years the Spanish workers
And peasants and foreign comrades
Fought heroically against the fascists
And many shed their blood.
And when Spain’s Republic fell
And Franco won the Civil War
Thousands more were also killed
Or jailed in the next 30 years. (chorus)

Franco is dead and gone
And his dictatorship is no more
Yet jobs are hard to find in Spain
And many are still poor.
So workers still march in Madrid
And Dolores, some recall
And the System that exploits them
They know it will someday fall. (chorus)