This is a fun song to sing in a large group and it’s a good “zipper song”; in other words, you can make up verses on the fly, so it’s really adaptable.
Here are more verses:
If the goons get in the way, we’re gonna roll right over them… If the scabs get in the way, we’re gonna roll right over them… If the Gov gets in the way, we’re gonna roll it over him… If they lie to us again, were gonna roll it over them… If they try to lock us out, were gonna roll it over them… If they throw us all in jail, were gonna roll it over them… If they try to shut us up, were gonna roll it over them…
I have mixed feelings about our National Anthem. Francis Scott Key’s intention in writing the words it was, in part to proclaim victory over slaves who tried to escape in British ships during the War of 1812, and nowadays it is still very often used in offensively chauvinistic ways, ways that reinforce a kind of overbearing, masculine and militaristic ideal of what it means to be an American, and ideal that excludes women, gay men (really all LGBTQ people), native Americans and anybody who does not ally themselves with football. Still, the tune (which predates Keys’s words) is magnificent, and the sentiment in the first verse speaks to our hope that our Flag and the American ideals that it stands for will somehow withstand the shadows of oppression that are shadowing our land. Yeah, I do actually love the song. We know that the origins of our national ideals are often marred by the unthinking racism of the founders, but they laid down ideas that were a transition from the brutality of their times and have been a foundation for the liberal tradition of the past two and a half centuries.
Here is the Navy Band playing the Star Spangled Banner. (I need to listen to their arrangement carefully and see if I can’t improve the version for band given above).
Here is a really fantastic choral version by the Kentucky All-State Choir at their annual convention. It is very slow because the space they are in is so reverberant.
Down by the Riverside is very popular at demonstrations, particularly when there is a band there. I have included a band arrangement above, but a lot of bands just take the melody and improvise on it in a New Orleans jazz style and, if your band can improvise, this is probably the best and the most fun and effective way to use it.
I just learned the term, “Zipper Song.” It means a song that is easy to add new lyrics to, on the spot. Down by the Riverside turns out to be a terrific zipper song. Aaron, who is the music coordinator at the weekly “Bear Witness” rally outside the ICE Detention Center in Burlington, MA stands there with his guitar and makes up lyrics on the fly. He says he just looks at people’s signs and turns them into lyrics!
Louis Armstrong singing Down by the Riverside (I’m Gonna Lay Down my Sword and Shield)
What is it about water that so many of songs of the spirit conjure with it? “Wade in the water, children! God’s going to trouble the water!”, ”Like a tree that is planted by the water, we shall not be moved,” “By the waters of Babilon we lay down and wept when we remembered thee, O Zion!” And, I guess I just love hymns; and this one is so happy and so deep that I just have to include it.
Well, of course there are a couple of versions of this. Burl Ives is so unselfconsciously hokey that you have to love him.
This next one by Buddy Greene is so sweet that you almost can’t listen to it. Well, actually, it’s under copyright so you can’t listen to it here even if you want to; you have to go to YouTube. Click on the image.
Though it’s basically such a jolly song, most of the recordings of Shall We Gather at the River take it slowly and with a kind of cloying sincerity. I have no idea who the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet is (are?)—maybe they were connected to that old TV show? —but I kind of like their homespun take on this old standard even if it is offered tongue-in-cheek. (I’m still waiting for an African American gospel version. If you run across one, please send me a link!)
Hard Times was one of Stephen Foster’s earliest songs, written in 1853. Though the language of the lyrics is filled with nineteenth century sentimentality, still it expresses the pain of poverty and the divide between the rich and the poor in a way that is just as real today as it was 170 years ago. The YouTube recording, below, by Emmy Lou Harris, et al, is truly amazing.
This recording by Emmylou Harris, with Kate & Anna McGarrigle & Mary Black & Rufus Wainwright is my favorite recording of Hard Times…
Another great song from the Civil War—though this one may be more familiar to many as…
“Glory, glory hallelujah, Teacher hit me with a ruler, Knocked her on the bean with a rotten tangerine And she sunk like a German submarine.”
The original tune for this song was, John Brown’s Body. A song about the abolitionist, John Brown, who was put to death after a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859. If we allow ourselves to feel it, this song, with it’s simple, repetitive rhythm and it’s three-chord harmony, is still a stirring evocation of the righteousness we long for as a people.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic (LYRICS)
1. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.
(Chorus) Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
2. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.
3. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: “As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;” Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel, Since God is marching on.
4. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.
5. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.
This is a great, patriotic song from the Civil War. It can be sung indoors with a piano or, if you are lucky enough to have some band instruments for accompaniment, sing it at a rally or demonstration. I love this kind of music and have discovered rather late in life that I am a radical, left wing, commie, pinko, gay, effete intellectual snob because I am, underneath it all, a devout patriot who believes in the founding principles our nation is built on.
Battle Cry of Freedom (Lyrics)
1. Yes we’ll rally round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom, We will rally from the hillside we’ll gather from the plain, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.
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!
2. We are springing to the call for Three hundred thousand more, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom, And we’ll fill the vacant ranks of our brothers gone before, Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom.
3. We will welcome to our numbers the loyal true and brave, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom, And altho’ he may be poor, he shall never be a slave, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.
4. So we’re springing to the call from the East and from the West, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom, And we’ll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom.
