Do You Hear the People Sing?

The song, composed by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music), Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel (original French lyrics), and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics) 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.

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 and thunderous with each stanza.

They are to draw the National Guard into combat and ignite a civilian uprising to overthrow the government, but their rebellion eventually fails.

In the finale, the song transitions into a solemn hymn in which a world full of peace, freedom, and liberation is anticipated for all mankind.

[22] 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.