James

Glad to be of help. You are right that the line in verse 1 is 'For his company needed aid'. Once again, the accent thwarted me. I can hear it now in the Monroe version, but would never have deciphered 'needed aid' from the Lillys' version. I puzzled over the introduction of the present tense with 'today', but could not think of a substitute, let alone what they were really singing!

In both cases, they clearly sing 'mortal footsteps', but your 'martial' makes more sense.

Regards, Stewie.