The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #150763   Message #3514163
Posted By: GUEST,Io M. Hooper
12-May-13 - 07:46 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Battle of Bunker Hill (dummy title)
Subject: Lyr Req: The Battle of Bunker Hill (dummy title)
I accidentally got rid of a cassette, and I've found it has the only copy of this song I've been able to find. I believe it was originally recorded from a July 4 special on the radio station KVOD sometime in the '80s or late '70s, on the off chance that anything can be done with that information.

It has a very somber tune. It begins, "'Twas June upon the seventeenth day". It has plenty of reference to the horror of war:

Many Britons gasped on the ground.

With men cut down like grass that's mown

They fought like brave men, on both sides,
And many a valiant hero died.
The earth was soak-ed with their blood
And wounded wallowed in the flood.


The longest consecutive segment I remember is the last two-and-a-half stanzas:

...The best intelligence doth tell
One thousand and near fifty fell.

They lost near five men to our one,
Although our men were forced to run;
They bought their victory so dear
It did not much increase our fear.

May God bring on the happy day
When carnal swords no more shall slay
And Christ as Prince of Peace shall reign
And war be learnt no more again.