Click here to view the section titles only.


A Ballad of America:

A History of the United States through Folk Song

Table of Contents


 

Introduction

PART ONE -- The Colonial Period -- Beginnings to 1763

Chapter 1 -- The Traditional Ballads of North America

"Bawbie Allen"
"Geordie"
"The Gypsy Davy"
"The Golden Vanity"

Chapter 2 -- Colonial Songs and Ballads

"Isabeau" ("Isabel")
"Hush Little Baby"
"Deírin-Dé"
"Old Man Who Lived in the Woods"
"The Fox"
"Springfield Mountain"
"Amazing Grace"
"Brave Wolfe"

PART TWO -- Revolution and War -- 1763 - 1815

Chapter 3 -- The American Revolution (1775 - 1783)

"The Rich Lady Over The Sea" ("Revolutionary Tea")
"Fish and Tea" ("What a Court Hath Old England")
"Yankee Doodle" ("The Yankees Return From Camp")
"The Dying Redcoat"
"The Battle of Trenton"
"The Fate of John Burgoyne"
"How Stands the Glass Around?"
"Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier"
"Paul Jones' Victory"
"The Ballad of Major Andre"
"Lord Cornwallis's Surrender

Chapter 4 -- Heroes, Elections, and Battles (1783-1824)

"God Save Great Washington"
"Jefferson and Liberty"
"The Constitution and the Guerrière"
"The Star-Spangled Banner"
"The Hunters of Kentucky"
"Mrs. McGrath"

PART THREE -- Antebellum America -- 1815 - 1860

Chapter 5 -- The North in Antebellum America

"Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be?"
"The Master of the Sheepfold"
"The E-ri-e"
"The Two Sisters"
"Pity Me My Darling"
"To Work Upon the Railway"
"Stewball"

Chapter 6 -- Songs of the Sea

"Haul on the Bowline"
"What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor?"
"Shenandoah"
"Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her"
"The Greenland Whale Fishery"
"The Banks of Newfoundland"

Chapter 7 -- The West

"To the West"
"The Wisconsin Emigrant"
"The Jam On Gerry's Rock"
"When I Was Single"
"Single Girl"
"Shady Grove"
"Skip To My Lou"
"The Fools of '49"
"Santy Anno"
"The Dying Californian"
"The Lousy Miner"

Chapter 8 -- The South: African-Americans and Bondage

"No More, My Lord" ("Lord I Wonder Where He's Gone?")
"Long Summer Day"
"Follow the Drinking Gourd"
"All the Pretty Little Horses"
"Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"
"Go in The Wilderness"
"Go Down, Moses"
"Roll Jordan Roll"

PART FOUR -- The Civil War

Chapter 9 -- Songs of the Civil War

"Old Abe Lincoln"
"The Northern Bonny Blue Flag"
"The Mississippi Volunteers"
"Johnny Is My Darling"
"The Yankee Man of War"
"The Homespun Dress"
"General Lee's Wooing"
"John Brown's Body"
"Oh, Mary Don't You Weep"
"Marching Song of the First of Arkansas"
"Oh, Freedom!"
"The Battle Cry of Freedom"
"Virginia's Bloody Soil"

PART FIVE -- Continental Empire 1870 - 1914

Chapter 10 -- Northern Workers in the Gilded Age 1870 - 1914

"The Blantyre Explosion" ("High Blantyre")
"John Henry"
"The Wabash Cannon Ball"
"Tumbalalaika"
"Ot Azoy Neyt A Shnayder"
"Papir Iz Doch Vays"
"Bread and Roses"
"Solidarity Forever"

Chapter 11 -- The far West -- The Cowboy Frontier

"Get Along Little Dogies"
"Down by the Brazos"
"The Colorado Trail"
"The Streets of Laredo"
"The Cowboy's Lament"
"I Ride an Old Paint"
"Black Jack Davy"
"Home on the Range"
"The Farmer is the Man"

Chapter 12 -- African-American Workers in the South: 1865 - 1914

"Poor Lazarus"
"Pick a Bale of Cotton"
"More Cane on this Brazos"
"Another Man Done Gone"
"Take This Hammer"
"The Midnight Special"
"The Gray Goose"
"The Ballad of the Boll Weevil"
"The House of the Rising Sun"

PART SIX -- Between Two Wars 1914 - 1945

Chapter 13 -- Songs of World War I

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home"
"Johnny, I Hardly Knew You"
"Mademoiselle From Armentières"
"Pack Up Your Troubles"
"Sunrise" ("Morgenrot")

Chapter 14 -- The New Deal Through its Songs and Ballads

"Wandering"
"Everything Is Higher"
"Soup Song"
"Raggedy"
"Times Are Getting Hard"
"We Shall Not Be Moved"
"Which Side Are You On?"
"Going Down The Road Feeling Bad"
"Roll On, Columbia"
"Strange Fruit"
"Discrimination Blues"
"This Land Is Your Land"
Notes for Chapter 14 Songs

Chapter 15 -- Songs of World War II

"Los Cuatro Generales" ("The Four Generals")
"Viva la Quince Brigada"
"The Peat-Bog Soldiers"
"Partizaner Lid"
"D-Day Dodgers"
"Lili Marlene"
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

PART SEVEN -- Human Rights and the Cold War

Chapter 16 -- The Civil Rights Struggle, 1954 -- 1965

"I'm On My Way to Freedom Land"
"Hallelujah I'm A-Travelling"
"Bull Connor's Jail"
"Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
"This Little Light of Mine"
"We Shall Overcome"
"De Colores"

Folksong In The Classroom and us

Index

Materials and ordering information


order form | Ballad of America home page | praise for A Ballad of America

The order form is a PDF file which can be read using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.