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....the greatest patriotic song in American history.
The Battle Hymn Of The Republic is one of those songs which brings nearly all demographics together for a few minutes. White, Asian, Hispanic, African-American and everybody else seem to agree that it's a good tune. When the arrangement calls for a large choir and full orchestra, it can put a lump into the throat of the most apolitical Millennial or aging Baby Boomer who was once a "Hell no, we won't go" Vietnam protester.
Unlike our national anthem which gets butchered with regularity at a percentage of Major League baseball games by artists that try to turn Francis Scott Key into urban rap, the Battle Hymn of the Republic is usually reserved for events like Thursday in Washington D.C. at the conclusion of a Presidential speech. Even if the individual in question has a high-pitched voice and reads off a teleprompter like a kid failing high school speech class, if you end the shindig with a military chorus, band and the Blue Angels flying in tight formation over our national monuments, than left-wing or right-wing, everyone agrees that it is really good shit!
Battle Hymn of the Republic - Wikipedia
Originally John Brown's Body by William Steffe was a tune containing morbid lyrics like "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave" which wouldn't have stirred many men's soul's to embrace a nation. But fate intervened when Julia Ward Howe and her husband came calling to President Abraham Lincoln at the White House in late 1861, and the visit was said to have filled her bosom with inspiration to write a song. Unfortunately Julia Ward Howe was not a student of music composition, nor did she have the abilities of Ludwig van Beethoven to incorporate a few lines of Friedrich Schiller into a masterful Ode to Joy in the fourth movement of his 9th Choral Symphony. Luckily a friend of hers named James Clarke suggested she take a really neat melody he had discovered, re-write the horrible lyrics, and turn it into a Jim-dandy of a patriotic song for all people to remember. Miraculously she did just that.
The Battle Hymn Of The Republic is one of those songs which brings nearly all demographics together for a few minutes. White, Asian, Hispanic, African-American and everybody else seem to agree that it's a good tune. When the arrangement calls for a large choir and full orchestra, it can put a lump into the throat of the most apolitical Millennial or aging Baby Boomer who was once a "Hell no, we won't go" Vietnam protester.
Unlike our national anthem which gets butchered with regularity at a percentage of Major League baseball games by artists that try to turn Francis Scott Key into urban rap, the Battle Hymn of the Republic is usually reserved for events like Thursday in Washington D.C. at the conclusion of a Presidential speech. Even if the individual in question has a high-pitched voice and reads off a teleprompter like a kid failing high school speech class, if you end the shindig with a military chorus, band and the Blue Angels flying in tight formation over our national monuments, than left-wing or right-wing, everyone agrees that it is really good shit!
Battle Hymn of the Republic - Wikipedia
Originally John Brown's Body by William Steffe was a tune containing morbid lyrics like "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave" which wouldn't have stirred many men's soul's to embrace a nation. But fate intervened when Julia Ward Howe and her husband came calling to President Abraham Lincoln at the White House in late 1861, and the visit was said to have filled her bosom with inspiration to write a song. Unfortunately Julia Ward Howe was not a student of music composition, nor did she have the abilities of Ludwig van Beethoven to incorporate a few lines of Friedrich Schiller into a masterful Ode to Joy in the fourth movement of his 9th Choral Symphony. Luckily a friend of hers named James Clarke suggested she take a really neat melody he had discovered, re-write the horrible lyrics, and turn it into a Jim-dandy of a patriotic song for all people to remember. Miraculously she did just that.
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