156 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
Although “Old Dan Tucker” is in verse-and-chorus form, “Get Off the Track!”
adds new lyrics every time the chorus rolls around; the resulting form is thus
best described as strophic. The performers heard on the accompanying record-
ing sing six of the song’s eleven stanzas or strophes. Their performance holds
closely to the sheet music, with only two signifi cant changes: occasional har-
monizing where the sheet music simply shows one vocal melody line, and an
accelerando, a gradual increase in tempo, for the last stanza, vividly evoking the
train’s snowballing momentum.
As song writers the Hutchinsons circulated their work in sheet music form,
but their talent lay especially in public performing. When singing for an audi-
ence, they convinced spectators of the emotional truth of what they were hear-
ing. Yet none of the compositions bearing their name gained lasting popularity.SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR
When war erupted in April 1861 between the Northern and Southern states, the
sheet music industry responded with vigor. The songs of the Civil War, fueled
by patriotic feelings and commerce, brought together in a new cause many of
the themes associated with parlor songs: myth making, sentimentality, yearn-
ing, reform, and loss.
Song provided a way for the Union and the Confederacy to defi ne their ideals.
Just two days after Virginia left the Union on April 17, a pro-secessionist mob in
Baltimore attacked a regiment of Union troops from Massachusetts, and in the
fi ghting that followed, lives were lost on both sides. The incident inspired one of
the fi rst enduring songs of the war. James Ryder Randall, native Baltimorean,
wrote the words just after the attack:
The despot’s heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That fl ecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle-queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Randall’s poem, immediately published in newspapers, urges fellow Maryland-
ers to resist federal tyranny. His appeal is cast in elevated language familiar from
the earlier courtship song, with some biblical diction mixed in:
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland! My Maryland!
In October 1861 Randall’s words appeared in a sheet music version, set to the
German Christmas song “O Tannenbaum” (O Christmas Tree).
“Maryland, My Maryland” is less patriotic than chauvinistic. Patriotic expres-
sions refl ect a love of country and concern for its well-being, but Randall’s song
is short on love and long on vengeance. Expressing total allegiance to one side
and implacable hatred of the other, it calls fellow countrymen names—“tyrants,”“Maryland, My
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