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Monday, February 21, 2011

White House Music! Dueling Choruses

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 5:04 PM

(This is the President's Day edition of an ongoing series rating presidential campaign songs, in rough chronological order. You can find all the previous entries here.)

Things were different by the time Abraham Lincoln was up for reelection. It wasn't about keeping the union together anymore; it was about beating the Confederates and saving the union. So he went with another winner for a campaign song. According to Wikipedia, "Battle Cry of Freedom" was "so popular that the music publisher at one time had 14 printing presses going at one time and still could not keep up with demand. It is estimated that over 700,000 copies of this song were put in circulation." And there are two sides to this song. Here's the Union chorus:

The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

And here's the Confederate chorus:

Our Dixie forever! She's never at a loss!
Down with the eagle and up with the cross!
We'll rally 'round the bonny flag, we'll rally once again,
Shout, shout the battle cry of Freedom!

All of which goes to show that it was such a popular song that both sides wanted to claim it as their own. Lincoln won, and the Union won, and this song was a rallying battle cry as well as a campaign song. I am going to say this again, and in as plain English as I can put it: Abraham Lincoln is awesome.

Lyrics: 9
Enthusiasm: 10
Infectiousness: 10
Total Score: 9.67