Work Song

A work song is a song whose primary function is to accompany and organise physical labour: its rhythm is set by the task itself, coordinating the strokes of axes, hammers, hoes or oars, pacing repetitive effort and sustaining the workers' morale. The category spans sea shanties, railway and levee songs, cowboy and agricultural songs, and, in its most documented American form, the field hollers, spirituals and chain-gang songs of Black workers in the rural South. Typically leader-led and responsorial, with improvised verses over a stable refrain, work songs are a foundational source of blues, gospel and American folk music, preserved on record by singers such as *Lead Belly*.