Song List

In response to numerous requests from teachers and community musicians, we present the following lists of songs that might have been sung by the men on the Expedition, or by the folks back home. They comprise only a small part of the vast repertoire of popular secular and sacred music which might be used to evoke the spirit of Lewis and Clark's generation. Questions and further suggestions may be directed to the producer of Discovering Lewis & Clark -- through the "Feedback" utility at left.

A few tunes and songs that were well known around the time of Lewis and Clark, which might be familiar to many people today, and are readily available in print:

All Through the Night--"Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee all through the night"

Alouette--"Alouette, gentle Alouette"

Blue Bells of Scotland--"O where, and O where has my Highland Laddie gone?"

Comin' Thru the Rye--"If a-body meet a-body comin --through the rye"

Drink to me only with thine eyes--"Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine"

Green Grow the Rashes, Ho--"I'll sing you one, Ho! Green grow..."

Green Sleeves--"Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off discourteously"

Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier--"Here I sit on buttermilk hill" (To "go for a soldier" meant to volunteer for military service.)

Malbrouck has gone to battle--"...Who knows when he'll return?"

Oh, dear, what can the matter be?--"...Johnny's so long at the fair"

Yankee Doodle--"Father and I went down to camp"

God Keep America.The tune, which may date from the seventeenth century when it was associated with "God save the King," was first printed in America in 1761. The beautiful song beginning "My country 'tis of thee," which we sing to this tune today, were written in 1831.

God Keep America
Free from tyrannic sway
Till time shall cease
Hush'd be the din of arms
And all proud war's alarm;
Follow in all her charms
Heaven-borne peace.

God save great Washington!
Fair Freedom's noble son,
Born to command.
May ev'ry enemy
Far from his presence flee,
And be grim tyranny
Bound by his hand.

Adams and Liberty. The tune once known as "To Anacreon in Heaven," to which we sing "The Star Spangled Banner" today, is of uncertain origin, but it is known to have been one of the most popular tunes of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The first syllable of each stanza might have been sung on the same pitch as the second, not in a descending three-note pattern, as the tune is sung today.

Ye sons of Columbia, who lately have fought
For those rights which unstained from your sires have descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought
And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended;
Mid the reign of mild peace may your nation increase,
With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece.
And ne'er may the songs of Columbia be slaves
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.
Let fame to the world sound America's voice;
No intrigue can her sons from their government sever;
Her pride is her Adams--his laws are her choice,
And shall flourish, till Liberty slumber forever!
Then unite, heart and hand, like Leonidas' band,
And swear to the God of the ocean and land,
That ne'er shall the songs of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.

To Anacreon in Heaven. These words were written in 1775 for a London gentlemen's literary club called the Anacreontic Society--Anacreon was a Greek poet of the Fifth Century B.C. The men of the Corps of Discovery probably would not have known the song in its entirety, but most of them would surely have known the tune identified by the first four words. The first two syllables would have been sung on the same pitch as the third.

To Anacreon in heaven, where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this message arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
"Voice, fiddle and flute no longer be mute!
I'll lend you my name, and inspire you to boot.
And besides, I'll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine."

A la claire fontaine
The banks of the Dee
La Belle Françoise
Barbara Allen
La Carmagnole
Ca ira
Cindy
Dans votre lit
En roulant ma boule
How happy the soldier who lives on his pay
How stands the glass around?
Jefferson and Liberty
Lass of Richmond Hill
Liza Jane
Une perdriole
La Marseilles
Within a mile of Edinburgh town
Why, soldiers, why?

All hail the power of Jesus' name
Amazing grace (though perhaps not to the same tune commonly heard today)
Come, thou fount of every blessing
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord
I am a poor wayfaring stranger
O when shall I see Jesus
Poor wayfaring stranger
When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies
Wondrous love

A Virgin Unspotted--An anthem by the American composer William Billings (1746-1800).

St. David's Tune--Said to have been Jefferson's favorite Psalm tune.

God rest you merry, gentlemen--An 18th-century English carol, but the tune usually heard today did not appear until about 1850.

The first Nowell--Another 18th-century English carol.

Hark, the herald angels sing--The hymn was written by Charles Wesley in 1739, and was set to several different tunes during the rest of the 18th century. However, it could not have been sung to the tune most people know today, which was adapted in 1855 by a British musician from a melody by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

O come, all ye faithful--Written by John Francis Wade, an Englishman living in Douay, France, in the mid-18th century. The tune, also by Wade, is said to have originally been in 3/4 meter.

Angels we have heard on high--A French carol from 18th century; not translated until 19th century. The familiar arrangement of the tune appeared in 1937.

Away in a manger--(Two tunes) Sometimes attributed to Martin Luther, but probably written in America for the 200th anniversary of his birth, and at that time would have been sung to different tune than the one now used, which was composed in 1895 by William James Kirkpatrick, an editor and compiler of camp-meeting songs and gospel hymns.

While shepherds watch'd their flocks by night --Often sung to Winchester Tune, which dates back to 1592.

Joy to the world--The hymn was a paraphrase by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) of Psalm 98, "Sing unto the Lord a new song." In the early 19th century it was often sung to the tune Christmas, from Little & Smith's Easy Instructor, 1798. The tune usually used now, called Antioch, was written in 1836 by Lowell Mason, a prolific American composer of hymn tunes.

All hail the power of Jesus' name--Usually sung to the American composer Oliver Holden's tune, Coronation, composed in 1789 for Washington's visit to Boston. First published in 1793, it was an immediate hit.

Silent Night--1818
Angels we have heard on high--1855
Away in a manger--1855
O little town of Bethlehem--1874
What child is this?--Though the tune was well known in 1803, these words weren't written until 1871.
We three kings--Words and music by John H. Hopkins, Jr. (1820-1891)
Hark, the herald angels sing. The hymn— the text — was written by Charles Wesley in 1739. However, it could not have been sung to the tune most people know today, which was written by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).²

Gilbert Chase, America's Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.
Helen Cripe. Thomas Jefferson and Music. Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of    Virginia, 1979.
H. Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction. 3rd ed., New    York: Prentice-Hall, 1988.
Sigmund Spaeth. A History of Popular Music in America. New York: Random House,    1948.
Robert Stevenson. Protestant Church Music in America. New York: Norton, 1966.

Ruth and Norman Lloyd. The American Heritage Songbook. New York: American    Heritage Publishing Company, 1969.

Thomas W. Marrocco and Harold Gleason. Music in America: An Anthology from the    Landing of the Pilgrims to the Close of the Civil War, 1620-1865. New York: Norton,    1964.

Lee Vinson. The Early American Songbook. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1974.

--Joseph Mussulman; rev. 5/08

1. Did William Clark's "servant," York, sing any African American spirituals for the men? Probably not. To begin with, it would have been improper for him to have done so. Slave owners typically took punitive steps to eradicate all traces of their workers' original African identities, from their names, to tribal loyalties, family ties, languages, religions, and their musical traditions. Some owners allowed their slaves to sing and dance, but not in the presence of their families or other white persons. At least one is said to have permitted his to sing, but only at a whisper. Some pro-slavery whites convinced themselves and one another that the slaves' singing — which had been heard of but not listened to — merely proved they were happy with their lot. Furthermore, even if York had dared to sing any, their unique qualities would certainly have been worthy of remark, but no such occasions are mentioned anywhere in the journals.

The first African American "spiritual" to become widely known was brought to the attention of whites by a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, but not until two decades after the Society's founding in 1840. On October 12, 1861, the Society's weekly newspaper, The National Anti-Slavery Standard, published three of its twenty or more stanzas, and the refrain "Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt's land. Tell old Pharoah, let my people go." A white chaplain had heard a group of Contrabands sing earlier that year. He was told that the song had been sung by Virginia slaves for at least the past nine years. (Contrabands were slaves from Virginia plantations who had escaped their masters' control and fled to the nearest haven, Fort Monroe in northern Virginia. Their owners demanded their return, but General Butler, the commandant of the fort refused their owners' demands that they be returned, on the grounds they were "contraband of war" and thus were entitled to refuge in the North.)There may well have been many other versions of the Biblical story of Yaweh's power-struggle with Pharoah over the latter's captivity of the Israelites, for it held special meaning for slaves who had taken up Christianity, but they were buried in the generally obscure history of slavery in the U.S., and still remain lost to memory.

In December of 1861 the publication of a sheet music edition of "Go down, Moses" marked the beginning of a new epoch in American music. The arrangement was written in 1853 by Thomas Baker, an Englishman who had come to America from France as a member of Louis Antoine Jullien's orchestra. Baker, who probably never heard the song sung by blacks, set it in a rolling 6/8 meter, which might explain why it was excluded from the epoch-opening book, Slave Songs of the United States, which was published in 1867. It finally appeared in slow duple meter in Jubilee Songs, published in 1872 by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. After 1900, African American composers such as Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943), and William L. Dawson (1898-1990) composed or arranged, and published, many black spirituals, providing a new and appealing repertoire for white as well as black choirs in high schools and colleges. Dena J. Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 244-47.