"The Artillerists Oath" 1862

[Danny]

Composed for we Cannoneers:

"From out the wild flame of the furnace,
Thou cams't with labor fierce and earnest;
As the glory of a queen, O cannon, is thy sheen;
On thee in oath I lay my hand, True hold I out, true hold I out,
With thee to fight, With thee to fight,
For home, for freedom..."

You get the idea. The whole thing attached.

Dan Wykes
Fat Neck Mess

[Danny]

Re: "The Artillerists Oath" 1862

To those that asked, yes, there is a better copy - PM me.

Dan Wykes
Fat Neck Mess[/QUOTE]

[Silas]

Re: "The Artillerists Oath" 1862

Bet that was really popular around the campfire and on the march. Not.

[Danny]

Re: "The Artillerists Oath" 1862

Bet that was really popular around the campfire and on the march. Not.

Not. That's for sure, agreed. As with any collection of songs in tutors/collections/broadsides at the time, most were obscure and forgettable. No accountable P/E/C on this or others mentioned or demo'd here with titles and tunes that most of us never heard of.

Still, somebody did sing this song during the CW, and there were more than O sales of the sheet music. We know many copies were printed because a minimum quantity was necessary even to ink up. Who bought the copies? Even obscure songwriters had mothers (chuckle).

Obscure songs matter to us because they are just as good as popular songs as a published record of what a person living in the period was feeling and sharing. The business motive was that there were many thousand current and former Artillerists around during the CW; a calculated gamble that among those would be potential buyers. The publishers mistake was, perhaps, that artillerists tend to be tone deaf (Ha! )

Dan Wykes
Fat Neck Mess

[Indianabugles]

Re: "The Artillerists Oath" 1862

Before we sail down the "It was printed so someone bought it." Road, which in the main I agree with and have argued that a higher proportion of men than currently believed could read music, here I have to urge a little caution. There is a number at the top indicating it was in a book, or collection with other tunes. I think we may need to know what they were first, was the book purchased for the other tunes and this just happened to be there? Is this an ecclesiastical book as that would skewer the issue even further?
It does look like a page from a hymn book!!

[Danny]

Re: "The Artillerists Oath" 1862

Before we sail down the "It was printed so someone bought it." Road, which in the main I agree with...was the book purchased for the other tunes and this just happened to be there? Is this an ecclesiastical book as that would skewer the issue even further?...It does look like a page from a hymn book!!

Christian - I feel the same way. As it is, just one page in an obscure book, I suspect it "just happened to be there." I can't imagine the original single song sheet had many sales (though I haven't looked for it).

So in no way at all could this song be recommended for an AC impression at this point. It's not P/E/C. The AC value is only that it's an insight into CW artillerists; at least a period songwriter's view of them. And kind of entertaining to read, that's all. Are you a boom-boom?

From the other pages that were adjacent, I don't think it was a hymn book, probably more of a soldier's songster.

However, on your general caution; I think it's more of a sail to suppose that not a single person bought even one copy of any song published. It would require that a box of sheet music was destroyed or lost before it was put out for sale, not a P/E/C scenario. So reasoned analysis can only be that as a rule at least one person bought a copy of any song published, if only a Mom or a music agent. Having bought the song, they certainly sang it or had it sung for them. In any event speculation, even reasoned speculation, is not pertinent to the purpose of the AC - another forum maybe.

Dan Wykes
Fat Neck Mess