Comments on: The Origins of 6 Great American Songs

By: Mrs Coffee

Mrs Coffee — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:59:15 +0000

I’m currently reading The Camel Club by David Baldacci, and just today I read about \Hail to the Chief\ and how the poem (The Lady of the Lake) was written about an assination of a head of state… anyone know if this is true?

By: E

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:37:05 +0000

Say what you will, I still liked it when Gerald Ford used “Hail to the Victors” instead of “Hail to the Chief.” Go Blue!

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:35:03 +0000

Awe nothing about Born in the USA and how people tend to forget that its about protesting vietnam and vets rights?

By: Schmooz

Schmooz — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:37:22 +0000

I grew up in the town whose “claim to fame” (ha) is that yankee doodle was from here. we were taught one version of the song that the Brits sang: “Yankee Doodle went to town for to buy a firelock, we will tar and feather him and so we will John Hancock.” Yankee Doodle, supposedly a man named Thomas Ditson, famously didn’t own a gun and the Brits mocked him for it. They did eventually tar and feather Thomas Ditson, i’m pretty sure he survived it. The Americans adopted the tune just to shove it in the Brits faces. Townie pride.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:13:01 +0000

Katharine Lee Bates went to Wellesley College (a women’s college)and was a professor there when she wrote America the Beautiful and whenever we sing it a school events (Convocation, Commencement etc) we always change “crown thy good with brotherhood” to “crown thy good with SISTERhood”

By: ScottB

ScottB — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:26 +0000

Who can ever forget Ernest P. Worrell singing “Hail to the chief, he’s your buddy and your neighbor”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i31X5MLB9QA

By: AmyD

AmyD — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:47:47 +0000

Jenni, that’s what I always think of when I hear that song! Great movie, too!

By: Jenni

Jenni — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:22:05 +0000

Nope! Remember the movie “My Fellow Americans”?

“Hail to the Chief, he’s the Chief and he needs hailing. He is the Chief so everybody Hail like crazy.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYgaEQXYtG0&feature=related

At 3:48

And
“Hail to the Chief, if ya don’t I’ll have to kill you. I am the Chief, so you better watch your step, you Bastards!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=advMSjn4rxA&feature=related at 6:04

Enjoy!

By: Mary Kroll

Mary Kroll — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:56:55 +0000

Here is my smartness vis a vis Yankee Doodle’s “put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.” A Macaroni was a fancy, fashionable person and the song derides the colonists by suggesting they’d think a single feather made them look fancy.

By: MarMar

MarMar — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:49:05 +0000

I can’t hear “Hail to the Chief” without hearing Kevin Kline singing it in “Dave”:

“Hail to the chief, he’s the one they all say hail to!
They all say hail ‘cas he keeps himself so clean!
He’s got the power, that’s why he’s in the shower…”

At which point he’s cut off, by Sigourney Weaver if I remember correctly.