On this day, 7 October 1879, Joe Hill, songwriter and Industrial Workers of the World revolutionary union martyr, was born in Sweden. Songs he wrote, like Rebel Girl and The Preacher and the Slave – which is where the phrase “pie in the sky” comes from – were sung by thousands of workers on picket lines across the United States, which had become his new home. He was executed by the state in Utah in 1915 for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit.
About the design: US-born, Berlin based tattooer Brian Kelly has realised this month’s design which is an ironic and dark humoured take on the world’s preachers’ promise of a “pie in the sky”. Be good, behave, don’t question any authority, so that before finishing you off the Reaper may share a piece of cherry cake with you.
