My Father Sings . . . The Battle of New Orleans

This was a favorite Saturday night sing-along, my brothers and I dancing out the running through the briers and brambles and bushes where a rabbit couldn't go, high-stepping with the bloody British, then slapping our own tails and exploding with the 'gator that lost his mind.  We played all the parts.

My idea of America has always included the scrappy backwoods underdog chasing the top-lofty redcoats of the world's mightiest empire out of town.  Sometimes we get so turned around, though. Are we the evil empire now?  Is it the rebel cause or the resistance we're fighting for? Redcoats, red hats, we keep playing all the parts, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Maybe because I've grown up on the songs my Dad sings, I still have faith in the plucky common sense and deep-down courage of my country to finally stand their true ground, to do the right thing, to hold fire until we can look the problem right in the eyes then really give it all we've got. We've done it before. We'll do it again.

Go vote.

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In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We looked down the river and we seed the British come
And there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring.
We stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise,
If we didn't fire our muskets till we looked 'em in the eyes.
We held our fire till we seed their faces well,
Then we opened up our squirrel guns and gave 'em . . . Well, we

Fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Yeah, they ran through the briers and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down,
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannonballs 'n' powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind --

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Yeah, they ran through the briers and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

Hut, hut, three, four
Sound off, three, four
Hut, hut, three, four
Sound off, three, four
Hut, hut, three, fourWriter/s: JAMES MORRIS