Let Robeson Sing

It's about Paul Robeson internationally, famous actor and singer. he was a political activist on behalf of oppressed peoples for nearly fifty years. But the 'Went to Cuba to meet Castro' has nothing to do with robeson

"Sing it loud, sing it proud I will be heard, I will be found Sing it loud, sing it proud I will be heard, I will be found"

Those lines send shivers down my spine, especially when hearing this song live. Absolutely fantastic.

It's sad, if it wasn't for this song I probably wouldn't have heard about Paul Robeson. He has such an amazing story!

I assumed the line about Cuba was a reference to the Manics' visit to Cuba a few years back. Don't quite understand the part about Moscow, though, I don't know if it's supposed to be figurative rather than literal (Moscow, obviously, representing Russian Communism - or Stalinism, to be precise). Good song, particularly the snipe at McCarthyism and 'the lie of the USA.'

Paul Robeson had planned a trip to Cuba in 1961. Before then, however, he attemped suicide in a Moscow hotel room. His son contends that his father was victim of the CIA's MKULTRA experiments, and had been given a drug called BZ while there.

This is obviously a controversial topic, so confirming or debunking these statements I'll leave to those still interested.

the 'went to cuba to meet castro, never got past sleepy moscow' is a reference to the left in general. When you say revolution, you think russian revolution, then communism. So before you go to meet castro, you go to moscow. Then when you think moscow, you think stalin and think 'actually, it aint that good'

God, I LOVE this song, its beautiful.

"But the 'Went to Cuba to meet Castro' has nothing to do with robeson"

Went to Cuba to meet Castro, never got past sleepy Moscow. Did he intend to go to Cuba, at some point?. I always assumed that was the link?

The song is about aparthied and also socialist aspirations. One day our day will come. Burn all racists (this is metaphorical of course wouldn't want any scumbag, I mean human, to be burnt lol).

Robeson spent years in Moscow as a guest of the Communist party. He even recorded a version of the Soviet national anthem. He remarked that Moscow was the one place he felt comfortable as a black man amongst a largely white population feeling that Soviet citizens didn't see his race before seeing him as a comrade if that makes sense. The 'sleepy moscow' line may be a reference to the fact that under Stalin; and even more so under Kruschev and those that followed, the revolutionary spirit of Lenin had largely been lost in consolidation and beurocracy, whereas Cuba and South America had become the great hope of socialism with truly people powered revolutions that had not (at that time) yet fallen into dogmatism or counterrevolution. Basically Moscow wasn't making things happen anymore and so was sleepy whereas Cuba was at the forefront of the struggle against imperialism. The MK Ultra thing has never been proved, but Robeson spent time in a uk sanitarium and was by all accounts never the same afterwards. He was black listed during the McCarthy witch hunts and denied foreign travel after he fell under suspicion. Afterwards he chose to exile himself from the US first in living for a time in the UK and also I n the Soviet Union. Incidentally whilst in the uk he spoke at the National Eisteddfod of Wales - a Welsh folk festival where he was extremely well received and perhaps gives a link to the Manics Welsh Roots. He returned to the US later in life as a broken man (perhaps due to attempted mind control attempts by the CIA and MI5) and shunned publicity til his death in 1976.