'US Independence' songs from UK view

Subject: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 05:31 PM

I was asked if there were any songs talking about the UK perspective on the US declaration of independence written around that time. There's a number giving the US point of view, but I couldn't think offhand of any giving the view from over here.

Your suggestions, please ...

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 08:33 PM

I don't think there are any. It took the ensuing war to motivate people to write some.

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: Emma B
Date: 03 Jul 08 - 08:40 PM

A contibution from Burns
Ballad on the American War

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 03:15 AM

Over here, I don't think anybody cared - or cares - enough to write about it. Talking to American friends, I occasionally come up against the assumption that we must be really resentful of our ex-colony's success and celebrate the fourth of July by boycotting all things American, but I don't think anyone thinks like that. I'd never even heard of the War of 1812 before I started chatting with Americans online.

Hey, it is the fourth of July. I had no idea when I started writing that. Well, happy Fourth to those who celebrate it.

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: GUEST,Dazbo at work
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 04:48 AM

I don't know any, but, as there was quite a large portion of the British public that had sympathy with the WoI, it's quite possible there were songs written over here in SUPPORT of revolutionaries.

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 05:51 AM

We simply don't know just what the level of support for the American revolutionaries was. A Chapter in 'Britain and the American Revolution' (ed. H.T. Dickinson) is emtitled 'The British Public and the American Revolution: Ideology, Interest and Opinion' by James E. Bradley fails to find any verifiable evidence that ordinary British people supported the Anericans. Historians from both sides of the ideological divide have tried but have only managed to show that support was mainly confined to members of what we would now call the 'professional' and self employed lower middle classes.

Roy Palmer, in his The Sound of History: Somgs and Social Comment' states that 'The American War of Independence gave rise to a cinsiderable body of songs, on both sides' but fails to give a single example of songs about the war itself. He discusses one about a maiden's determination to join her boyfriend in the fighting.

Last thought - the War of 1812 is indeed little known in the UK. As one historian recently said - three countries were involved, two think they won it and the third doesn't know it was in it.

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: GUEST,keith A o Hertford
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 08:48 AM

Shannon and Chesapeake.
3 versions in DT

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: quokka
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 09:07 AM

Has 'Sailing to Philadelphia' anything to do with that time/event?
(Mark Knopfler and James Taylor)about the Mason/Dixon line.
Cheers,
Quokka

Subject: RE: 'US Independence' songs from UK view
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 08 - 09:10 AM

There are a lot of songs about Paul Jones, particularly from Scotland (not surprising given that what he tried to do to Edinburgh and Leith would have made Osama bin Laden look like an amateur).