Today I remembered a Spanish rhyme about a recent historical event, the murder of admiral Luis Carrero Blanco (1973), one of Francisco Franco’s last prime ministers, and wondered about American rhymes.
The rhyme about Carrero Blanco goes “Nació en la tierra / vivió en el mar / subió al cielo / en un Dodge Dart”. An adaptation would correct the misconception about the car he was riding when the bomb launched him into the stratosphere: “Born on land / lived at sea / went to heaven / in a Dodge GT”.
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Lizzie Borden had an axe,
She gave her mother forty wacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Something about 1492 and Columbus sailing the ocean blue
In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
There’s more, but I can’t remember it.
The Schoolhouse Rock version of the Constitution’s preamble isn’t a rhyme exactly, but it is pretty iconic.
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 fought the bloody British at the town of New Orleans.
(don’t remember the rest, and might have some of the words wrong).
In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
“On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked with the early sun.” I think there are other Pearl Harbor ones too.
I can’t stand it, I know you planned it…
I’m gonna set it straight, this Watergate.
-Beastie Boys
Do you remember? The 21st night of September. Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders.
The most famous one is *Paul Revere’s Ride*, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that catapulted a historically obscure person into fame because of [bad history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere's_Ride) and the fact that his name made for a good rhyme. It put Revere at the center of a heroic (but wrong) story about warning the continental militia about the British army. That story much more well-known than the poem itself. Most people only know the first two lines: “Listen, my children, and you shall hear/ Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,”
Yankee doodle dandy was written by a British surgeon during the revolutionary war, it was making fun of American soldiers. I think we have thoroughly co-opted it now, it’s the official song of my state lol.
*The Star Spangled Banner*?
He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men so true
He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through
They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew
But his soul goes marching on
There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
Daniel Boone was a man, he was a biiiiiig man.
Not a rhyme, but there’s a song about a deadly ship wreck on Lake Superior in November 1975, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” First verse:
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons
more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
Where where will we stand when all the lights go out across these city streets where were you when all of the embers fell I still remember them covered in ash covered in glass covered in all my friends I still think of the bombs they fell
We’re the Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn!
Now that I think about it- not terribly well known, but there was [an account in verse of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island](https://www.americanrevolution.org/war_songs/warsongs35.php). I have a suspicion that there are an awful lot of other songs and rhymes about historical events that have been lost or forgotten.
When Johnny comes marching home again
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout,
The ladies they will all turn out
When Johnny comes marching home.
(Civil War song in the North)
All Schoolhouse Rock songs
I’m Just a Bill, up on capital hill
or We the people in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquiliteeee, eeeee ,eeee
or Interplanet Janet… but that’s not history
John Henry was about three days old,
Sittin’ on his papa’s knee.
He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel;
Said, “Hammer’s gonna be the death of me, Lord, Lord.
Hammer’s gonna be the death of me.”
The captain said to John Henry
“Gonna bring that steam drill ’round.
Gonna bring that steam drill out on the job.
Gonna whop that steel on down. Down,
Down.
Whop that steel on down.”
John Henry told his captain,
“A man ain’t nothin’ but a man,
But before I let your steam drill beat me
Down,
I’d die with a hammer in my hand. Lord,
Lord.
I’d dies with a hammer in my hand.”
John Henry said to his shaker,
“Shaker, why don’t you sing?
I’m throwin’ thirty pounds from my hips on
Down.
Just listen to that cold steel ring. Lord, Lord.
Listen to that cold steel ring.”
The man that invented the stream drill
Thought he was mighty fine,
But John Henry made fifteen feet;
The steam drill only made nine. Lord, Lord.
The steam drill only made nine.
John Henry hammered in the mountain
His hammer was striking fire.
But he worked so hard, he broke his poor
Heart.
He laid down his hammer and he died. Lord,
Lord.
He laid down his hammer and he died.
John Henry had a little woman.
Her name was Polly Ann.
John Henry took sick and went to his bed.
Polly Ann drove steel like a man. Lord,
Lord.
Polly Ann drove steel like a man.
John Henry had a little baby.
You could hold him in the palm of your
Hand.
The last words I heard that poor boy say,
“My daddy was steel-driving man. Lord,
Lord.
My daddy was a steel-driving.”
Well, every Monday morning
When the bluebirds begin to sing.
You can hear John Henry a mile or more.
You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring.
Lord, Lord.
You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring.
Late one night, when we were all in bed,
Old Mother Leary left a lantern in the shed,
And when the cow kicked it over, she winked her eye and said,
“There’ll be a HOT time on the old town tonight.”
FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!
About the great Chicago fire in 1871
There was one we used to sing about the Titanic:
“Oh it was sad! (So sad!)
It was sad! (Too bad!)
It was sad when the great ship went down! (To the bottom of the sea!)
Husbands and wives! Little children lost their lives!
It was sad when the great ship went down!”
(I added the exclamation points so you would understand how enthusiastically and happily we would sing it.)