Category Archives: Patriotic Songs

America the Beautiful

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Download PDF of America the Beautiful

Download PDF of band arrangement of America the Beautiful

Download MuseScore file (compressed) of America the Beautiful

America the Beautiful is the first score that we have offered in a MuseScore file. We are doing this so that band leaders can arrange parts according to what instruments they have in their bands. MuseScore is a really good music transcription application that can be downloaded free from MuseScore.org. There is also a professional level version that also allows you to download from a really big library of music that other members have composed or transcribed. As with all the music transcription software available, there is pretty stiff learning curve when you start; but, if you are going to be dealing with a lot of music for band, it is well worth the time to learn it.

Here is a wonderful arrangement by Carmen Dragon. I couldn’t resist including it. If your band is can do it, definitely play this rather than mine! (Well, maybe for marching.)

The Star Spangled Banner

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Download PDF of The Star Spangled Banner

Download PDF of full score and parts for marching band of The Star Spangled Banner

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.

Battle Hymn of the Republic

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Download PDF of Battle Hymn of the Republic
Download MuseScore file of Battle Hymn of the Republic

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.

Link to Odetta singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic

The Battle Cry of Freedom

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Download PDF of Battle Cry of Freedom

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.

Link to a choral version of Battle Cry of Freedom from the movie, Lincoln.