The Committee of Public Safety

An interesting line of historical development from one great song of liberation to another, starting with the most influential terrorist in American history. Says Wikipedia:

In 1890, George Kimball wrote the story of how the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Massachusetts militia, known as the “Tiger” Battalion, collectively worked out the lyrics to “John Brown’s Body”. Kimball wrote:

We had a jovial Scotchman in the battalion, named John Brown…and as he happened to bear the identical name of the old hero of Harper’s Ferry, he became at once the butt of his comrades. If he made his appearance a few minutes late among the working squad, or was a little tardy in falling into the company line, he was sure to be greeted with such expressions as “Come, old fellow, you ought to be at it if you are going to help us free the slaves”; or, “This can’t be John Brown–why, John Brown is dead.” And then some wag would add, in a solemn, drawling tone, as if it were his purpose to give particular emphasis to the fact that John Brown was really, actually dead: “Yes, yes, poor old John Brown is dead; his body lies mouldering in the grave.”

According to Kimball, these sayings became by-words among the soldiers and, in a communal effort–similar in many ways to the spontaneous composition of camp meeting songs described above–were gradually put to the tune of “Say, Brothers”:

Finally ditties composed of the most nonsensical, doggerel rhymes, setting for the fact that John Brown was dead and that his body was undergoing the process of dissolution, began to be sung to the music of the hymn above given. These ditties underwent various ramifications, until eventually the lines were reached,–

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,

His soul’s marching on.”

And,–

“He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord,

His soul’s marching on.”

These lines seemed to give general satisfaction, the idea that Brown’s soul was “marching on” receiving recognition at once as having a germ of inspiration in it. They were sung over and over again with a great deal of gusto, the “Glory hallelujah” chorus being always added.

However these earthy lyrics offended the finer set:

Bishop’s battalion was dispatched to Washington, D.C. early in the Civil War, and Julia Ward Howe heard this song during a public review of the troops in Washington. Rufus R. Dawes, then in command of Company “K” of the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, stated in his memoirs that the man who started the singing was Sergeant John Ticknor of his company. By this time the association with the diminutive Scotsman John Brown was forgotten or unknown to most listeners, who heard only a rough and somewhat oddly-phrased marching song about John Brown the abolitionist. Howe’s companion at the review, the Reverend James Clarke, suggested to Howe that she write new words for the fighting men’s song. Staying at the Willard Hotel in Washington on the night of November 18, 1861, Howe awoke with the words of the song in her mind and in near darkness wrote the verses to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”. Of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembers, “I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’ So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Many of the troops that marched deep into Dixie marched into battle singing one of these two songs. Many of the children of my generation sang a song of liberation set to the same music:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
We have tortured all the teachers – we have broken every rule
We went marching down the hall just to hang the principal
Our troops go marching on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
Met her in the dark with a man eating shark
Our troops go marching on!

Those were variations we used when I was a freedom fighter. Wikipedia has documented other variations:

Glory, Glory halleljah,
My teacher hit me with a ruler,
I hide behind the door with an AK-44
And that was the end of my teacher.
My dad was mad, My mom was sad
Me and my brother were laughing like mad.

We have tortured all the teachers – we have broken every rule

We have even drowned the principal in the local swimming pool

And we’ll go marching on!

We have tortured all the teachers – we have broken every rule

When the principal tried to stop us we just flushed ‘em down the stool

Our truth is marching on!

We have ruptured all the teachers and we’ve broken all the rules,

And we’ll go marching on!

We have sliced the English teachers and have drowned them in their blood

And we’ll go marching on!

We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule

We have barbecued the principal and hung the janitor

Our school is burnin down!!

I went to her funeral and I went to her grave,

instead of throwing flowers I threw a handgrenade

We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule

We have plans to hang the principal tomorrow after school!

We have forgotten our multiplication tables, eaten our teachers and their families,

And we’ll go marching on!

We have shot the secretary and we hung the principal

Us brats keep marching on.

We have smashed up all the blackboards, we have thrown out all the books

The school is burning down.

We have wandered down the halls writing cuss words on the walls

The school is burning down.

We have bound and gagged the principal and tossed him in the pool

The school is burning down.

We have barbecued the principal, destroyed the PTA,

Our school keeps burning on.

They sent us to the office, so we hung the principal,

Our troops are marching on!

We are killing all the teachers, we are breaking all the rules

We broke into his office and we murdered the principal

Our troops go marching on!

We broke into his office and we tickled the principal

We have tortured every teacher and we’ve hung the principal.

We have broken every piece of chalk as well as every rule.

They have taken all the teachers out and broken every rule.

They have painted all the toilets black and all the lockers white.

There won’t be school no more!

We have tortured all the teachers, we have broken all the rules.

We’re marching down the hallway for to kill the principal.

We have tortured every teacher. We have broken every rule.

We have spit in every corner of the dirty, rotten school.

We have shot the secretary and destroyed the PTA!

Us kids are marching on!

We have tortured all the teachers, we have broken every rule

We have even spanked the principal and kept him after school

Examples of variations of the chorus:

Met her at the store with a loaded .44…

So I hit him in the bean with a rotten tangerine…

I hit her in the butt with a rotten coconut…

I hit her in the bean with a rotten tangerine…

Met her in the attic with a semi-automatic…

Met her at the gate with a loaded .38…

I hid behind the door with a big ole’ two-by-four

I stood behind the door with a loaded .44…

I bopped her up the bean with an atomic submarine…

Shot her up to heaven with an AK47…

Shot her in the bean with an M-16…

Shot her out the door with a Magnum .44…

Shot her in the head and the teacher dropped dead…

Met her at the bank with a loaded German tank…

Reform school here I come!

And there ain’t no teacher no more

Now the teacher is no more

And she ran right out the door!

Met her at the door with my trusty .44

and she’s not my teacher anymore!