Whatever became of patriotic songs?

Charleston Daily Mail ^ | 6/30/5 | Don Surber

[SmithL]

They helped teach the history of America -

Our 19-year-old son said, well, Dad, our country has never been invaded.

I corrected him. What about the War of 1812?

He gave me that "Yea, right Dad" look that told me he thought I was making this up. I have been known to tell our children tall tales.

But not this time. There really was a War of 1812. The British invaded the fledgling country and even burned the White House.

This is a kid who has spent a year in college thanks to a Promise scholarship. And he never heard of Commodore Hazard Perry or the Battle of Lake Erie?

Sadly, Perry's brave words --"We have met the enemy and they are ours" -- are not as familiar today as Pogo's sarcastic "We have met the enemy and they is us."

So I began singing that Jimmy Horton tune, "The Battle of New Orleans."

Fun little tune: "We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'/ There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago/ We fired once more and they began to runnin' /On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico."

The song reminds people of the sacrifices young men made 191 years ago to make this nation independent of British rule, once and for all.

My son is not the only person with holes in his knowledge of American history. A few years ago, I discovered a young reporter was unfamiliar with the "Marine Corps Hymn."

She was a graduate of a prestigious Southern university named after a tobacco heir, and yet she was ignorant of a song that I had learned in elementary school.

"From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli . . . "

Tripoli was the site of the biggest battle in America's first pre-emptive war. Rather than pay tribute to the pirates of the Barbary Coast, Thomas Jefferson sent in the Marines.

Led by Lt. Presley O'Bannon, the Marines crossed the desert to storm the pirates' harbor fortress.

By the way, the French had been paying tribute to the pirates for centuries.

Not all of American history is battles and wars. We also learned in elementary school the song, "Erie Canal," about the waterway that connected the Great Lakes to the Hudson River.

"Low bridge, everybody down/ Low bridge for we're coming to a town/ And you'll always know your neighbor, you'll always know your pal/ If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal."

"My Darling Clementine" and "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" tell of what people went through to settle this great land.

Then there is George Cohan's "I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy." He may not have been born on the Fourth of July, but he was a real live nephew of his Uncle Sam.

Patriotism is a love of the country, no matter what one may think of the current administration. It goes beyond waving the flag, singing a song and knowing the nation's history, although that helps.

Walt Whitman wrote, "I Hear America Singing." On this Fourth of July, we should sing again.

Don Surber may be reached at donsurber@dailymail.com.

[mdittmar]

"Battle of New Orleans"

"Marine Corps Hymn"

"I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy"

[noutopia]

As long as we have liberal teachers we will have this problem.Everyone needs to put pressure on the school boards to teach the truth,not liberal PC crap.

[zzen01]

Publik School kid huh?