"Do You Hear the People Sing?" is one of the principal and most recognisable songs from the 1980 musical Les Misérables. It is sung twice in the stage musical.
Overview
The song is first sung in Act I by Enjolras and the other students at the ABC Cafe as they prepare themselves to launch a rebellion in the streets of Paris during the funeral procession of General Jean Maximilien Lamarque. The song is sung again in the finale as the final song of the musical. This second version, which immediately follows a number by Jean Valjean and others, is sung by the entire cast with revised lyrics, and becomes progressively louder with each stanza. The song is a revolutionary call for people to overcome adversity. The "barricades" referred to in the song are erected by the rebel students in the streets of Paris in the musical's second act. They are to draw the National Guard into combat and ignite a civilian uprising to overthrow the government, but their rebellion eventually fails.
Use in various languages
The original French version of the musical did not end with the full ensemble singing this song; It only later became the musical's finale song when it was revamped for the English-language version.
At the special Les Miserables10th Anniversary Concert in 1995, Do You Hear the People Sing? was sung by 17 different actors who had played Jean Valjean around the world. Each actor sang a line of the song in his own language. The languages sung were English, French, German, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Polish, Dutch, Norwegian, Czech, Danish, and Icelandic.
Another unofficial adaptation of Do You Hear the People Sing? is to Turkish, named Duyuyor Musun Bizi İşte Çapulcu'nun Sesi sang during Gezi Park Protests.
In Hong Kong/Taiwan, there are Cantonese – :zh-tw:问谁未发声|問誰未發聲 and Taiwanese – :zh-tw:你敢有听着咱的歌|你敢有聽着咱的歌 versions are mixtures of dialect translation from the English lyrics and specific references to corresponding political protests.
In June 2013, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the song was adapted in Arabic and performed by all 27 contestants from across the Arab world on the final episode of Arab Idol. The song is titled: Hear the Voice of the Oppressed. Another adaptation was created by Fabrica, an Egyptian theatrical team, in Egyptian dialect. The song, among few others from the musical, was performed on Albernameg and aired on 14 June 2013.
Use as a protest song
There are unofficial adaptations of Do You Hear the People Sing? in Cantonese and Taiwanese, intended as actual protest songs; better known versions include "Asking Who That Hasn't Spoken Out", written in Cantonese for Occupy Central with Love and Peace, and Lí Kám Ū Thiann-tio̍h Lán Ê Kua in Taiwanese Hokkien. The song can be heard in protests in Hong Kong as recently as of September 2019, when students sang this song over the national anthem during a secondary school's opening assembly. The song was initially removed on music platforms including QQ Music in mainland China because of its widespread usage in anti-extradition bill protests, while its English version was later removed from those platforms. Aside from the aforementioned Cantonese and Taiwanese Hokkien adaptations, The Telegraph said that the song "has long chimed with people protesting around the world", adding that it was heard at the 2011 Wisconsin protests, the 2013 protests in Turkey, and a protest against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Australia in 2013. It has also been used by anti-TTIP protesters who have interrupted TTIP congresses as flashmobs singing the song. The song was also used in support of the Maidan protests in 2014 by the group Ukraine 2020, who released a music video for the song on YouTube. In 2016, the song was used as a protest song in South Korea's nationwide Park Geun-hye resignation movement. Iraqis involved in the protests in 2019 also released a video with the song used. More recently in July 2020, a Tagalog version of the song has also appeared in protests in the Philippines in light of the ABS-CBN franchise renewal controversy where Filipinos protested in front of the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center to express their support with the media giant.
Use in politics
On 16 September 2016, during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump used the song in a rally in Miami under the parody title Les Déplorables, a response to Hillary Clinton's controversial "basket of deplorables" label.
