Music [is] the third rail of life. You grabbed it to shock yourself out of the dull drag of hours. To feel something. To burn with all the emotions you didn't get to experience in the ordinary run of school, TV, and loading the dishwasher after dinner.

Other notable songs written by Hill include "The Tramp" "There is Power in a Union" "The Rebel Girl" and "Casey Jones—the Union Scab". IWW
By this time using the name Joe or Joseph Hillstrom (possibly because of anti-union blacklisting) he joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies around 1910 when working on the docks in San Pedro California. Early life
Joel Emmanuel Hägglund was born 1879 in Gävle (then called Gefle) a city in the province of Gästrikland Sweden.

Hill was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. In a recently discovered letter Erickson confirmed her relationship with the two men and the rivalry between them. According to the biography Joe Hill and his friend and fellow countryman Otto Appelquist were rivals for the attention of twenty-year-old Hilda Erickson a member of the family with whom the two men were lodging.