I am playing with the band in this show, and advising them on the period music that is selected for various parts of the show. In the previous post I linked to YouTube videos of various union songs. Here are links to some Confederate songs, and some that may have been sung by both sides.
The Bonnie Blue Flag
Almost an anthem of the South, this ode to the first, unofficial flag of the Confederacy, adapted from an Irish tune subsequently re-used for Unions versions of the song and other songs, outlines the formation of the rebel union:
Note that in this version, form the movie "Gods and Generals, The singer recites in the first verse "...We're fighting for our liberty / With famine , war, and toil," though the subtitles read the better-known lyric"..."With treasure, blood, and toil." In fact, historians believe the original version was "...Fighting for our property / We gained through honest toil."
The unofficial anthem of the South, this song was quite popular nationwide. Even Abraham Lincoln liked it. All the ironies in the world come home when you discover it was originally written for a blackface minstrel show.
Goober Peas:
Both armies had food shortages during the war. The Rebels even made up a song about what they had to eat: peanuts.
Lorena:
This song is perhaps the saddest song to have been sung during the Civil War. It was immensely popular but made the men so homesick that some officers banned it because of the desertions it caused. This particular version was a hit in the 20th century:
Here is another version with different instrumentation and harmonic vocals. The song was popular on both the Union and Confederate sides:
I hope you have enjoyed these Civil War Songs. Please come and enjoy Emancipated Glory at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church running from Thursday through Saturday, May 30, 31, and June 1, 2019
As some of you may know, I am playing President Abraham Lincoln in "Honorable Distinction," a play produced by and performed at the Mount Pisgah Baptist Church in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. The play is about the experience, struggles, and victories of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry and other famous and should-be-famous black heroes of the Civil War period, including Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Robert Smalls, and Martin Delaney. It is being done in salute to our veterans the weekend after Memorial Day. Tickets are available at Eventbrite. This is my second year doing this show, and the second time playing Lincoln (though not in the same show). I played General William Tecumseh Shermanthe last time I was in this play), and again, in addition to playing a major role, I am also supplying a number of costumes and playing in the band. As part of the band-playing, I have am advising the band and the production on certain songs that may fit into the show. Here are YouTube videos of several Civil War songs that you may hear during the show, in one manner or another. This list is of Union songs only. Confederate songs are in the following post. You can hear most of these songs performed in bombastic style by US military orchestras (you may search if you like), but I have tried to find versions that sound more like they are being sung by real people. One amazing thing about these songs is how adaptable they are to different arrangements, accents, instruments, and rhythms! A second post will follow of Confederate songs UNION SONGS The Battle Cry of Freedom (Rally 'Round the Flag): Perhaps the best-known song from the Union side after "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It was a big deal because it both glorified the Union and stated the cause of ending slavery.
This "parlor version" gives a sense of how it might have been sung by a gathering of family and friends around the piano in a well-to-do family's home (Not a dynamic you find often in modern recordings of Civil War songs):
The Battle Hymn of the Republic (John Brown's Body; Glory, Glory Hallelujah): Like many folk songs, the lyrics have been changed and misinterpreted and adapted for different causes. Here are three different arrangements, each with a different mood: March: (Mid 20th century Mich Miller version)
Gospel:
Campfire:
Tramp Tramp, Tramp the Boys Go Marching: This was about men in prisoner of war camps looking forward to rescue by their comrades. The melody is used for the Christian song, "Jesus Loves the Little Children," and apparently other songs all over the world.
This version is probably sounds more like it might have been heard back in the day and has some great civil war pics in the video:
This version is played on a music box from 1904!
When Johnny Comes Marching Home: Adapted from an old Irish tune, you might know this as "The Ants Go Marching One by One..." Note the strength of the "Hurrah!" each time it comes around. This was a thing back in the day.
This song probably has the most fascinatingly adaptable melody of all Civil War songs. As an example, this instrumental version is a fascinating progression from modest marching tune to the very definition of bombastic orchestral excess, and then ends in a haunting melody on a single fife.
It was not until I did the research for this show that I actually heard this whole song and learned that it is actually an anti-slavery song. Of it, Frederick Douglas himself wrote that the song "awakens sympathies for the slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and flourish":
And here is a contemporary acapella vocal group doing their version, proving what Dave Alvin says, "It's all folk music."
The lyrics you hear at the Kentucky Dereby are not the original ones, which is why the abolitionist heritage of this song my be surprising. But I found (thanks to the internet) those lyrick. Modern eyes and ears my find them quite stunning:
Original Lyrics (composed by Stephen Foster in 1853):
Verse 1: The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home, ‘Tis summer, the darkies are gay; The corn-top’s ripe and the meadow’s in the bloom, While the birds make music all the day. The young folks roll on the little cabin floor, All merry, all happy and bright; By ‘n’ by Hard Times comes a-knocking at the door, Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.
Chorus: Weep no more my lady Oh! weep no more today! We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home, For the Old Kentucky Home far away.
Verse 2: They hunt no more for the possum and the coon, On meadow, the hill and the shore, They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon, On the bench by the old cabin door. The day goes by like a shadow o’er the heart, With sorrow, where all was delight, The time has come when the darkies have to part, Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.
Chorus
Verse 3: The head must bow and the back will have to bend, Wherever the darky may go; A few more days, and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow; A few more days for to tote the weary load, No matter, ’twill never be light; A few more days till we totter on the road, Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.
So some see the show, hear the music, learn the history, and enjoy the acting, singing., an dancing talents at Mt Pisgah Baptist Church this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, May 30, 31, and June 1.
Next: CONFEDERATE TUNES! BONUS! Marching Through Georgia: We are not actually doing this song anywhere in the play, but it is too important to leave out of a collection of Civil War songs. This is the version of which I am most familiar. I love the spirit of the vocalists in this band! It does use a word or two that are no longer in common parlance among polite company, and some may consider it insensitive towards the sufferings of the South. But the event it describes did shorten the war. Not to get too political, I wonder how many such people complain about the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan? Would they object to a song called "Flying over Hiroshima?"
Tennessee Ernie Ford was part of the mid 20th-Century movement that sanitized and glorified the Civil War and its participants, particularly the Confederates. This version carefully omits any part of the song that might be politically sensitive or relates the suffering of the victims and the aggressive nature of the event.
The United States of America is less than 250 years old. We simply do not have anything to compare with Notre Dame de Paris that combines historical, cultural, and architectural significance and aesthetic beauty. We had 9/11 and the burning of the White House in the War of 1812, but without reducing their impact and meaning one iota, the significance of the destruction of those buildings was different, and we will not understand what it means to the French to see that 900+ year-old building so damaged by fire.
I hear that many relics had been removed as the building was being restored and many more were removed before the fire got to them, most of the stone structure, including the two famous towers, still stand, and that only one person, a firefighter, was seriously injured. I am certain that the French have documented and measured every inch of that structure and computer-analysed the colors and constructional materials of everything in it, but rebuilding a perfect copy is not the same as actually having the original wooden beams in the roof, for which an entire forest is said to have been cut down, or those original stained glass windows from the 1200's.
A few years ago I was in Paris and shot extensive photos and videos of the building, inside and out. But I failed to save the digital files in my camera from that day. More recently, I returned to that city, but did not take the time to re-shoot it. Now much of what I saw will only remain in my memory and other people's pictures.
This building, and France, have survived longer than many nations, and they both have seen greater share of victories and losses, damage and recovery, revolution and evolution, than an American who does not trace their roots beyond this nation's history can conceive. As a person of mostly-French descent and a student of history, my heart goes out to France, my French relatives and friends, and the French people for whom this building means so much, and grieve for the loss, but look forward to the French spirit that will rebuild it.
Multi-talented entertainer, writer, filmmaker, artist, historian, grappler, swordfighter. I am writing a book about the many Captain Marvels, and compete in swordfighting and submission grappling. I make movies, act, sing, and do stage combat, and critique on all media.
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