Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier

[WJTre]

Enjoy this performance of perhaps the saddest Civil-War era song played on the Cedar Mountain Battlefield.

 

[7thWisconsin]

Very nice - but it has nothing on "Somebody's Darling."

 

[WJTre]

Very nice - but it has nothing on "Somebody's Darling."

I'll have to record my fiend performing that one now to compare

 

[James Brenner]

From what I have read, the tune goes back to at least the Revolutionary War and is Irish in origin.

 

[WJTre]

From what I have read, the tune goes back to at least the Revolutionary War and is Irish in origin.

The original version had a lyric referring to Buttermilk Hill. I remember hearing a version during a Revolutionary War documentary.

 

[James Brenner]

I came across a bound volume of sheet music dating to the mid-19th century a few years ago. I can't read music, but I was struck by how many songs used older melodies. Almost all the sheet music in the book was parlor music and the variety of music surprised me: minstrel songs, hymns, folk music, and even operas.