Original words and music – Traditional
New words 
2003 by Jim Bearden
On Sunday, March 16, 2003 (which also happened to be my 59th birthday), we took (a small) part in the world-wide demonstrations going on that day to try to prevent our appointed acting President (as writer and cartoonist Ted Rall refers to him) from launching an unprovoked war against Iraq. Of course, it didn’t work, and the initiation of that war was announced just two days later (for more about that disaster, which is still, tragically, going on, many years later, see my song “The Day the Dream Died”). We had planned to be in Los Angeles for that weekend, visiting our grandson, who was about 6 months old at the time, and we knew the demonstration near their house was to be a candle-light vigil on Wilshire Boulevard, in front of the Veterans Administration building, and across from the (large) military cemetery filled with some of the victims of previous wars. In preparation for that, I decided to write some new verses to “We Shall Overcome”, in the hope that we might be able to sing them for the vigil. It didn’t work out that way, of course – with everyone strung out along Wilshire, and all the traffic noise, it wasn’t possible to do any group singing, but I think the new verses are still worth sharing. The ideas in the first two (Verses 6 and 7) need no explanation, in the context of the impending war(s) being provoked by the administration, but the one in Verse 8 might: I combined the theme of a candle-light vigil, and lighting a candle against the darkness about to overtake us, with the theme from the old Carolyn Hester song, “Ten Thousand Candles”, which I’ve always liked. Of course, our efforts to prevent that war were not successful, but one of the lessons from the original song, and from all the people who have sung it over the centuries, is never to give up striving for what’s right, even when the goal seems impossible.
Verse 1:
We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome some day.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall overcome some day.
Verse 2:
We’ll walk hand in hand, we’ll walk hand in hand
We’ll walk hand in hand some day.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We’ll walk hand in hand some day.
Verse 3:
We are not afraid, we are not afraid;
We are not afraid today.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We are not afraid today.
Verse 4:
The truth shall make us free, the truth shall make us free,
The truth shall make us free some day.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
The truth shall make us free some day.
Verse 5:
We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace;
We shall live in peace some day.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall live in peace some day.
(New) Verse 6:
Iraq is not our enemy; Korea is not our enemy;
They are not our enemies today.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall overcome some day.
(New) Verse 7:
But we do have enemies, yes, we do have enemies:
Fear and hatred are our enemies today!
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall overcome some day.
(New) Verse 8:
We shall not fear the dark; we’ll light a candle in the dark;
We’ll light ten thousand candles in the dark!
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
We shall overcome some day.
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