{"id":2457046,"date":"2020-04-10T22:24:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T04:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/tony-vagneur-celebrating-a-song-is-unifying-through-our-different-lenses\/"},"modified":"2020-04-11T09:35:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-11T15:35:01","slug":"tony-vagneur-celebrating-a-song-is-unifying-through-our-different-lenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/tony-vagneur-celebrating-a-song-is-unifying-through-our-different-lenses\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Vagneur: Celebrating a song is unifying through our different lenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIn the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">While God is marching on!\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/at-banner-paypal.jpg)\" class=\"col-xl-8 p-3 text-center rocket-lazyload\">\n<h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/donate\/?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=donation&amp;utm_term=&amp;utm_content=mid-article\">Donate<\/a><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">If you think this is a religious song, you\u2019d be wrong \u2014 it\u2019s a warrior\u2019s cry, a call to arms \u2014 written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861. Ms. Howe was a Civil War abolitionist who, after visiting Union troops in Washington, D.C., was inspired to write \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic\u201d in their honor. The song became the rallying cry for the North.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Martin Luther King Jr. paid tribute to the piece in his famous \u201cI\u2019ve Been to the Mountain Top\u201d speech, quoting with oratory brilliance that only he could muster, \u201cMine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.\u201d He was assassinated the next day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The song has been used by innumerable groups as a call to arms, a gathering of the faithful in a show of solidarity, a potential sacrifice of the group together in order to gain the high ground for the cause. Think women\u2019s suffrage, \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Suffragists,\u201d made into a famous union tune, \u201cSolidarity Forever,\u201d and the ever-catchy WWII U.S. Paratroopers version, \u201cGory, gory, what a hell of a way to die.\u201d It\u2019s been resurrected by the likes of Mark Twain with a sly twist of the words in objection to U.S. violence in the Philippines; and used to close various memorial services to the lives of famous men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">For me, it came about in a different way. In junior high, I had no \u201ccause\u201d other than trying to figure the world out and killing time by playing the piano. My grandmother had a thick book of songs and lyrics, American standards, you might say, lying on top of the living room upright piano. There was little other sheet music available and I took to that book with enthusiasm, pounding out song after song, including \u201cJohn Brown\u2019s Body\u201d, from which the melody for Howe\u2019s song was inspired. \u201cJohn Brown\u2019s body lies a-mouldering in the grave.\u201d Sing it, and you\u2019ll see it\u2019s basically the same tune.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In an age of no personal computers, no iPhones, relatively few distractions, those songs could keep me entertained for hours. \u201cSwing low, sweet Chariot\u201d was a favorite, but the one most inspirational was \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic.\u201d Not one for lyrics, I managed to memorize every line, and could play and sing it all from memory at a young age. Mozart and Beethoven were lonely, displayed on the piano at my parent\u2019s house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">It was the mental pictures that held my adolescent attention, that fed my imagination. You could say it was the symbolism, but I don\u2019t think so. There was the stoic-faced soldier, retuned home, reliving memories of the gruesome battles in his head; the tear-stained faces of the widows, their gaze upon the flag-draped coffins of their dead, young husbands, returned home in a box. Charging across the fields of battle, \u201cwith a glory in their bosoms,\u201d they were brutally sacrificed. Children longing for their fathers, unsure of flags, three-cornered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">All my images were tragic, the ultimate price of war tugging at my brain. If you sang the song, if you died, or maybe lived, Christ might be the man you wanted on your side. All the while, yours truly was there, playing \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic\u201d for every heartbreaking, imaginary scene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cHe is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.\u201d John Steinbeck knew about it and wrote about it in his Nobel prize-winning novel, \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath.\u201d The infamous American Dust Bowl crushed the lives of thousands of mid-America farmers, sending them on an odyssey of survival to California. For writing this novel, Steinbeck caught the political wrath of both the left and the right. Strangely and humorously, equally, thousands bought his tome only so they could throw it on the blazing bonfires of nationwide book burnings. Steinbeck\u2019s pockets jingled from the dissent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Years later, home alone, the Judy Garland show came over our small, one-channel, black-and-white television set. Pundits say her version of \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic\u201d was paying homage to John F. Kennedy, who had weeks earlier been killed. As I sat transfixed, my eyes clouding over, such a backstory was unknown to me, and from the bottom of my heart I knew that the soulful depth of her performance was celebrating the song itself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cIn the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Tomorrow is Easter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\">Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at <a href=\"mailto:ajv@sopris.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ajv@sopris.net<\/a><i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"><\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/tony-vagneur-celebrating-a-song-is-unifying-through-our-different-lenses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on!\u201d Support Local Journalism Donate If you think this is a religious song, you\u2019d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 04:49:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2457065,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457046\/revisions\/2457065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}