Moulder in Peace, John Brown
150 years ago this October, the terrorist/hero John Brown raided the armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. By December 1859, his body lay a-moulderin’ in the grave, a fact quickly memorialized in the famous ditty known as “John Brown’s Body.” Most people today know the song, but what has been lost to history is that it wasn’t really about John Brown — at least not the famous one. BackStory producer Rachel Quimby tells the real story of “John Brown’s Body.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Related Sources:
- John Brown bio, time-line, and bibliography, courtesy of our friends at the Encyclopedia Virginia. You can also read more there about Harpers Ferry, the site of Brown’s raid.
- Civil War vet George Kimball’s 1890 article “Origin of the John Brown Song“
- The Gilder Lehrman Institute’s online John Brown exhibition
- Excerpt from an essay about the origins of Battle Hymn of the Republic, plus an original audio recording.
- More history and recordings of the Battle Hymn
- Biography and writings of Julia Ward Howe
- Informal list of the John Brown Song’s many variations
- Mark Twain’s 1901 re-writing of the Battle Hymn lyrics
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*Special thanks to the Gimmel class at Congregation Beth Israel, and the brave men of the VFH for lending their voices in the service of subversive lyrics*
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John Brown, Set to Music | Encyclopedia Virginia: The Blog :
[...] new podcast from the outgoing BackStory producer Rachel Quimby looks at the surprising origins of the song [...]
Quote -- November 9, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
OMG, what a riot! i thought that song was just a hyper-militaristic Christian hymn sung by troops marching off to kill Jews and Muslims (“as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free…”) in their various Crusades and pogroms. Live and learn!
QuoteBTW: You oughta tell those kids: It’s not “Kicked her in the butt with a rotten coconut”; it’s “Hit her on the bean with a rotten tangerine!” What’s the matter with kids these days?!
What a mellifluous voice this narrator has – I could listen to her dulcet tones even if the content was not itself compelling. In this case, Ms. Quimby’s resonant and charming voice only serves to emphasize the fascinating and strange tale of John Brown and the song that immortalized him.
QuoteAnything you’d find in an American Protestant Hymnal would be less than 200 years old, the Contemporary Christian music of the day. It would not reflect the worship of medieval or ancient peoples. And btw, the Crusades were nothing more than a western barbarian invasion condoned by a papacy that had recently broken itself off from the rest of the Christian world, and killed just as many Christians as Muslims and Jews. It certainly did not represent the character of ancient, eastern Christianity, and has nothing to do with this Protestant hymn.
Matt
QuoteWho is singing the Battle Hymn that is featured in the show? It’s gorgeous, and I’d love to buy it.
QuoteThat would be the great Odetta. It is nice, isn’t it?
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