"Which side are you on" by Pete Seeger for The Hunger Games Originally written by Florence Reece in Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1931, she was a wife of a miner who turned fear into one of the most enduring labor songs in American history. During the Harlan County coal conflict, men connected to Sheriff J. H. Blair and the anti-union side came looking for Sam Reece. Florence and the children were left to face the raid. After the search was over, Florence took a familiar tune and wrote new words for miners and their families. The song was “Which Side Are You On?” The Harlan County strike of 1931 and 1932 grew out of a coal economy under terrible strain. The Great Depression deepened problems that already existed in the coal industry. Overproduction, falling demand, mechanization pressures, and competition from other fuels weakened the market. For miners and their families, those broad economic forces came home as lower wages, hunger, evictions, and company pressure. The most familiar account says that armed men came to the Reece home searching for Sam. He had been warned and escaped. Florence and the children remained. The men searched the house, and Florence later remembered the fear and fury of that night.

After they left, she used what she had. The story often says she wrote on a calendar page. She set her words to an older religious tune, commonly identified as “Lay the Lily Low.” That choice helped the song travel. The melody already felt familiar to people raised on hymns, ballads, and lined out singing. The new words gave that old sound a direct political purpose. “Which Side Are You On?” moved through singers, organizers, and collectors. Alan Lomax’s Kentucky recordings include related performances by Tillman Cadle and Jim Garland, two important figures in the same world of Appalachian labor song. Those recordings helped preserve the song within a wider archive of Kentucky mountain music and protest singing. Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers brought the song to a broader national audience in the 1940s. Smithsonian Folkways now lists a recording of “Which Side Are You On?” in the Classic Labor Songs from Smithsonian Folkways collection, with Florence Reece, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and the Almanac Singers connected through the track credits. By then, the song had already begun to leave the narrow circumstances of 1931 Harlan County and enter the larger bloodstream of American labor music. (Information on Florence Reece and the song here)

With lyrics like

"My daddy was a miner And I'm a miner's son And I'll stick with the union 'Til every battle's won"

I feel like the song is in a way similar to The hunger games. District 12 is a coal mining district; it's one of the poorer districts. Not to mention it is heavily implied that District 12 is in the Appalachia area.

"Don't scab for the bosses Don't listen to their lies Us poor folks haven't got a chance Unless we organize"

The rebellion is started because of Katniss, someone from District 12. Her own father was a coal miner who died within a coalmining accident.