Music at the Marv: Beloit Janesville Symphony

Congratulations to Mr. Cody Linder on the debut of "Free America."
"Our country was born with struggle and strife. With every social and political conflict, songs have played a very important part. The Revolutionary War was no exception. “Free America!” is a medley of five of those important tunes that played an important role during this country’s struggle for independence from British rule.

This medley starts with “The Liberty Song.” This tune is one of the earliest patriotic songs in the thirteen colonies. The lyrics were written by founding father John Dickinson in the summer of 1768. "The Liberty Song" is set to the tune "Heart of Oak" by William Boyce, which remains as the official march of the Royal Navy to this day. Many colonial tunes during this time were set to well-known British melodies, as it was a sure way to ensure that the tunes would get sung. It became an anthem throughout the Revolution and was used that summer to help American colonists call to action against the Townshend Acts, which imposed strict revenue-raising taxes on goods imported from England. "The Liberty Song" was so well known at the time, that even John Adams would attend a banquet in 1769 and wrote in his diary that he "Dined with 350 Sons of Liberty in Robinson's Tavern in Dorchester. There was a large collection of good company. We had "The Liberty Song" (Dickinson's) and the whole company joined in the chorus." While the song calls for unity among the American colonists, the song calls for people to contribute their money, not their lives, to the struggle of liberty.

In Freedom we're born and in Freedom we'll live.

Our purses are ready. Steady, friends, steady;

Not as slaves, but as Freemen our money we'll give.

The composer for the tune of "The Liberty Tree" is unknown, but the poem the tune was set to was written in 1775 by American founding father Thomas Paine. Paine's poem was written in honor of the Liberty Tree, a famous elm tree that stood in Boston in the years leading up to the American Revolution. The tree was a symbol and a rallying point for the growing resistance and defiance to British rule over American colonies. It was namely used by the Sons of Liberty, a political organization founded to advance the rights of American colonists and to fight British taxation, an organization in which Thomas Paine was an important member of. The Liberty Tree became a well known symbol of the American Revolution, and many other colonial towns would designate their own Liberty Trees to commemorate and stand with those who stood defiantly against British rule. The song tells a celestial tale of this tree, and how it became a temple for those who desired to fight for Liberty. The song also warns against those who wish "To cut down this guardian of ours." In August of 1775, this very thing would happen when American colonists who remained loyal to the British crown (known as Loyalists) cut down the Liberty Tree.

"Free America" (pronounced 'Free Americay' in the text) is another song set to a British tune, "The British Grenadiers," which was a tune known well to many American colonists. This song was used to inspire courage in American volunteers for the colonial army to fight against the British. The lyrics were written and published in colonial newspapers by Dr. Joseph Warren in 1774, a physician and an important figure in the American Revolution, who was a leader in Patriot organizations in Boston and served as President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. It was also him who was responsible for dispatching Paul Revere on his famous midnight ride! He would enlist as a private soldier for the colonial militia, and Warren would be killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill at the age of thirty-four.

Yankee Doodle, perhaps the most well-known American tune from the Revolutionary War also began as a British tune. It was one that was used to boost morale in the British troops. one used by the British to mock the American "Yankees" with which they saw as disheveled and disorganized simpletons. When the colonial troops heard the strains of the familiar tune, it would blatantly give the British position away to them and it let them know that the British were mocking them. The famous first verse might at first glance seem like nonsense:

Yankee Doodle went to town

A-riding on a pony,

Stuck a feather in his cap

And called it macaroni.

"Doodle," referred to anybody who was seen as a fool or simpleton. "Stuck a feather in his cap" is a reference to the American soldiers who would stick feathers in their cap and would be a point of mockery from the British. When the British would call them "macaronis," they were referring to someone who was used to describe a fashionable man who dressed and spoke in an outrageous fashion. However, the song would also become an American colonists as a song of defiance, and added their own verses to sing right back at the British troops. Eventually, the song would become an American song of national pride. The new words of Yankee Doodle would be written in 1775 by Edward Bangs, a sophomore at Harvard who served as a minuteman at Lexington. In October of 1781, a notable performance of Yankee Doodle would happen after the siege of Yorktown, where the British soldiers were defeated. The surrendered British soldiers refused to pay the American soldiers any heed, only looking at the French soldiers that were present. The famous French military officer, Marquis de Lafayette was outraged at this attitude by the British soldiers. He then ordered his own band to play "Yankee Doodle" in response to taunt the British. When they did so, the British soldiers had no choice but to at last look upon the victorious Americans.

The final tune of this medley, “Chester,” is a patriotic choral anthem written by William Billings. Billings, a tanner from Boston, was also a singing master, composer and a devout supporter of liberty for the Colonies. He was one of the first American choral composers and is considered the father of American choral music. Billings composed over 100 choral anthems, psalm tunes, set pieces and hymns between 1770 and 1794, which became very popular in their heyday. But his forceful, ecstatic and stirring 1770 hymn "Chester" would become the first and one of the most iconic anthems of the Revolutionary War as well as his best known tune. The most popular version was his second version of the song, published in 1778 in his collection The Singing Masters Assistant. The song is called "Chester" simply to label the tunes independently from one another, so one could sing them to different words without creating confusion. This was a very common practice of Billing's day.

The text, ripe with patriotic and religious fervor, is just as defiant and striking as the tune itself:

Let tyrants shake their iron rod

And Slav'ry clank her galling chains,

We fear them not, we trust in God

New-England's God forever reigns."