Songs They Sang

In response to numerous requests from teachers and community musicians, we present the following lists of songs that might have been sung by the men on the Expedition, or by the folks back home. They comprise only a small part of the vast repertoire of popular secular and sacred music which might be used to evoke the spirit of Lewis and Clark’s generation.

Familiar Tunes

These tunes and songs were well known around the time of Lewis and Clark, and might be familiar to many people today. They are readily available in print:

• All Through the Night—”Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee all through the night”
• Alouette—”Alouette, gentle Alouette”
• Blue Bells of Scotland—”O where, and O where has my Highland Laddie gone?”
• Comin’ Thru the Rye—”If a-body meet a-body comin —through the rye”
• Drink to me only with thine eyes—”Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine”
• Green Grow the Rashes, Ho—”I’ll sing you one, Ho! Green grow . . . “
• Green Sleeves—”Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off discourteously”
• Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier—”Here I sit on buttermilk hill” (To “go for a soldier” meant to volunteer for military service.)
• Malbrouck has gone to battle—” . . . Who knows when he’ll return?”
• Oh, dear, what can the matter be? –” . . . Johnny’s so long at the fair”
• Yankee Doodle—”Father and I went down to camp”
• Fisher’s Hornpipe played by Daniel Slosberg as Cruzatte
• V’la l’bon vent a voyageur’s song sung by Daniel Slosberg as Pierre Cruzatte
• Rose Tree
• Old French
• Soldier’s Joy

Tunes Unfamiliar Today

Some more songs that were popular in those days, which might be hard to find in print today but might be on the Web. They probably would be unfamiliar to most people:

• A la claire fontaine
• The banks of the Dee
• La Belle Françoise
• Barbara Allen
• La Carmagnole
• Ca ira
• Cindy
• Dans votre lit
• En roulant ma boule
• How happy the soldier who lives on his pay
• How stands the glass around?
• Jefferson and Liberty
• Lass of Richmond Hill
• Liza Jane
• Une perdriole
• La Marseilles
• Within a mile of Edinburgh town
• Why, soldiers, why?
• God Keep America
• Adams and Liberty

Spirituals

• All hail the power of Jesus’ name
• Amazing grace (though perhaps not to the same tune commonly heard today)
• Come, thou fount of every blessing
• Come ye sinners poor and needy
• How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord
• I am a poor wayfaring stranger
• O when shall I see Jesus
• Poor wayfaring stranger
• When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies
• Wondrous love

Christmas Songs

These songs were in use at the time of the expedition.

• A Virgin Unspotted—An anthem by the American composer William Billings (1746-1800).
• St. David’s Tune—Said to have been Jefferson’s favorite Psalm tune.
• God rest you merry, gentlemen—An 18th-century English carol, but the tune usually heard today did not appear until about 1850.
• The first Nowell—Another 18th-century English carol.
• Hark, the herald angels sing—The hymn was written by Charles Wesley in 1739, and was set to several different tunes during the rest of the 18th century. However, it could not have been sung to the tune most people know today, which was adapted in 1855 by a British musician from a melody by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
• O come, all ye faithful—Written by John Francis Wade, an Englishman living in Douay, France, in the mid-18th century. The tune, also by Wade, is said to have originally been in 3/4 meter.
• Angels we have heard on high—A French carol from 18th century; not translated until 19th century. The familiar arrangement of the tune appeared in 1937.
• Away in a manger—(Two tunes) Sometimes attributed to Martin Luther, but probably written in America for the 200th anniversary of his birth, and at that time would have been sung to different tune than the one now used, which was composed in 1895 by William James Kirkpatrick, an editor and compiler of camp-meeting songs and gospel hymns.
• While shepherds watch’d their flocks by night—Often sung to Winchester Tune, which dates back to 1592.
• Joy to the world—The hymn was a paraphrase by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) of Psalm 98, “Sing unto the Lord a new song.” In the early 19th century it was often sung to the tune Christmas, from Little & Smith’s Easy Instructor, 1798. The tune usually used now, called Antioch, was written in 1836 by Lowell Mason, a prolific American composer of hymn tunes.
• All hail the power of Jesus’ name—Usually sung to the American composer Oliver Holden’s tune, Coronation, composed in 1789 for Washington’s visit to Boston. First published in 1793, it was an immediate hit.

These Christmas songs the men could NOT have sung:

• Silent Night—1818
• Angels we have heard on high—1855
• Away in a manger—1855
• O little town of Bethlehem—1874
• What child is this?—Though the tune was well known in 1803, these words weren’t written until 1871.
• We three kings—Words and music by John H. Hopkins, Jr. (1820-1891)
• Hark, the herald angels sing. The hymn—the text—was written by Charles Wesley in 1739. However, it could not have been sung to the tune most people know today, which was written by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

God Keep America

The tune, which may date from the seventeenth century when it was associated with “God save the King,” was first printed in America in 1761. The beautiful song beginning “My country ’tis of thee,” which we sing to this tune today, were written in 1831.

God Keep America
Free from tyrannic sway
Till time shall cease
Hush’d be the din of arms
And all proud war’s alarm;
Follow in all her charms
Heaven-borne peace.

God save great Washington!
Fair Freedom’s noble son,
Born to command.
May ev’ry enemy
Far from his presence flee,
And be grim tyranny
Bound by his hand.

Adams and Liberty

This tune once known as “To Anacreon in Heaven,” to which we sing “The Star Spangled Banner” today, is of uncertain origin, but it is known to have been one of the most popular tunes of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The first syllable of each stanza might have been sung on the same pitch as the second, not in a descending three-note pattern, as the tune is sung today.

Ye sons of Columbia, who lately have fought
For those rights which unstained from your sires have descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought
And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended;
Mid the reign of mild peace may your nation increase,
With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece.
And ne’er may the songs of Columbia be slaves
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.

Let fame to the world sound America’s voice;
No intrigue can her sons from their government sever;
Her pride is her Adams—his laws are her choice,
And shall flourish, till Liberty slumber forever!
Then unite, heart and hand, like Leonidas’ band,
And swear to the God of the ocean and land,
That ne’er shall the songs of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Yankee Doodle was the most popular song on this side of the Atlantic Ocean during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It was well known for many years before being published in 1793 on a “broadside”—a single sheet containing the words only, selling for a penny—in Salem, Massachusetts, and sold at a shop called The Bible and Heart. It was titled “A Yankee Song.” The refrain is sung after every verse:

Yankee Doodle, keep it up,^[1]Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, Universal Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence (1811; facsimile. Northfield, Illinois: Digest Books, 1971). A Doodle was “a silly … Continue reading
Yankee Doodle, dandy.
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy!

Perform it as a series of solo verses, with all joining to sing the refrain. To offset its inherent monotony, have the soloist(s) modulate up a half-step every three or four stanzas. For a finale, repeat the last two lines of the refrain, pause four beats after the third line, and finish in either double time or half time, and top it off with a shouted “Huzzah!”

A Yankee Song

Father and I went down to camp
Along with Captain Goodin’,
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty puddin’,^[2]Ibid. “Oatmeal and milk boiled to a moderate thickness, and eaten with sugar and butter. Figuratively, a wet, muddy road: as, The way through Wandsworth is quite a hasty pudding. To eat hot … Continue reading

Refrain!

And there we saw a thousand men
As rich as ‘squire David,
And what they wasted every day,
I wish it could be savéd.

The ‘lasses^[3]Molasses is a thick syrup, often dark brown, produced during the refinement of raw cane sugar. it can also be made, with a somewhat different, more nutritious result, from sugar beets. Sorghum syrup, … Continue reading they eat every day
Would keep a house a winter.
They have as much that I’ll be bound,
They eat it when th’re a mind to.

And there we see a swamping gun,^[4]A cannon.
Big as a log of Maple,
Upon a deuced little cart,
A load for father’s cattle.

And every time they shoot it off,
It takes a horn of powder,
And makes a noise like Father’s gun,
Only a nation louder.

I went as nigh to one myself,
As ‘Siah’s underpinning:
And Father went as nigh again,
I thought the deuce^[5]The devil. was in him.

Cousin Simon grew so bold
I thought he would have cock’t it:
It scared me so, I shriek’d it off,
And hung by Father’s pocket.

And Captain Davis had a gun,
He kind of clapt his hand on’t,
And stuck a crooked stabbing iron^[6]A bayonet.
Upon the little end on’t.

And there I see a pumpkin shell^[7]A pumpkin shell was a mortar round filled with powder, often loaded with small balls to use against shipboard personnel. Noah Webster, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), s.v. … Continue reading
As big as mother’s bason.
And every time they touch’d it off
They scamper’d like the nation.

I see a little barrel too,
The heads were made of leather.
They knock’d upon with little clubs,
And call’d the folks together.^[8]In those days drums alone were used to broadcast signals of various kinds, especially on the battlefield. Bugles were not used for signaling until the Civil War.

And there was Captain Washington,
And Gentlefolks about him.
They say he’s grown so tarnal^[9]Eternally, extremely. proud
He will not go without them.

He got him on his greeting clothes,
Upon a slapping Stallion.
He set the world along in rows,
In hundreds and in millions.

The flaming ribbons in his hat
They look’d so tearing fine ah,
I wanted pockily^[10]Earnestly, passionately. to get
To give to my Jemimah.

I see another snarl of men
A-digging graves, they told me,
So tarnal long, so tarnal deep,
They ‘tended they should hold me.

It scar’d me so I hook’d it off,
Nor stopt as I remember,
Nor turn’d about till I got home
Lock’d up in mother’s chamber.

Sing Yankee doodle, that fine tune
Americans delight in;
It suits for peace, it suits for fun,
It suits as well for fighting.

Refrain!

Bold ADAMS did in seventy six,
Our independence sign, Sir,
And he will not give up a jot,
Tho’ all the world combine, Sir.

Brother Ephraim sold his cow
And bought him a commission,^[11]Officers’ commissions in the Army or Navy could be purchased in those days.
And then he went to Canada
To fight for the nation.

But when Ephraim he came home,
He proved an arrant coward.
He wouldn’t fight the Frenchmen there
For fear of being devour’d.

Sheep’s head and vinegar
Buttermilk and tansy,^[12]“Tansy” (Tanacetum vulgare L.), is an aromatic plant with medicinal uses. Lewis and Clark gave the name Tansy Creek to a stream on Point Adams.
Boston is a yankee town .
Sing Hey Doodle Dandy.

First we’ll take a pinch of snuff,
And then a drink of water,
And then we’ll say, “How do you do,”
And that’s a Yankee’s supper.

Stand up, Jonathan,
Figure in thy neighbor;
Vathen, stand a little off
And make the room some wider.

Christmas is a-coming, boys,
We’ll go to Mother Chase’s,
And there we’ll get a sugar dram
Sweetened with molasses.

Punkin’ pie is very good
And so is apple lantern,
Had you been whipp’d as oft as I
You’d not have been so wanton.

Uncle is a Yankee man,
I’ faith, he pays us all off,
And he has got a fiddle
As big as Daddy’s hog trough.

Yankee Doodle went to town
Riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it “macaroni.”^[13]Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: Macaroni had two definitions back then. It was “An Italian paste made of flour and eggs. Also a fop, which name arose from a club, called the Maccaroni Club, … Continue reading

—From The Columbian Songster. Being a Large Collection of Fashionable Songs. Published in Wrentham, Massachusetts, 1799.

Cruzatte would have sung this song in French, of course, and louder, with much more vigor. The phrases that are repeated would have been sung alternately by Cruzatte and the oarsmen. He would have controlled the speed of their oar-strokes by changing the tempo of his song. For the sake of variety, all the songs a riverman used for this purpose would of course have had many different verses, some of which might have been invented spontaneously.

Recommended Reading

Gilbert Chase, America’s Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.

Helen Cripe. Thomas Jefferson and Music. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of    Virginia, 1979.

H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction. 3rd ed., New York: Prentice-Hall, 1988.

Sigmund Spaeth. A History of Popular Music in America. New York: Random House, 1948.

Robert Stevenson. Protestant Church Music in America. New York: Norton, 1966.

Recommended Anthologies

Ruth and Norman Lloyd. The American Heritage Songbook. New York: American Heritage Publishing Company, 1969.

Thomas W. Marrocco and Harold Gleason. Music in America: An Anthology from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Close of the Civil War, 1620-1865. New York: Norton, 1964.

Lee Vinson. The Early American Songbook. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1974.