Anna A. Gordon (1853–1931)

This isn't really a review. It's a description. I bought this book without one, thinking it would be a collection of songs from American political campaigns -- things like "Lincoln and Liberty."

It's not. The "Campaign" of the title is the campaign for Prohibition. Just be warned: I don't drink, and even I think these songs are deadly dull and ill-researched. I doubt they any of them qualify as "popular," either, since a number of them were written by Anna Adams Gordon herself. And I can't recall ever seeing any of them elsewhere. Of course, they might be popular to Temperance crusaders, but I suspect even they would find a lot of these things deadly.

If you can get it cheaply enough, though, it might be fun to have, at least if you know anything about nineteenth century pop music. A number of the pieces are set to their own tunes, which I suspect are awful although I didn't look closely enough to know in most cases. But others are set to popular melodies like "John Brown's Body" (here called "The Battle Hymn of the Republic") or "Marching Through Georgia" or even, in one case, "The Star-Spangled Banner." Given that the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is "To Anacreon in Heaven," which is a straight-out drinking song, you just might have reason to laugh at the sheer irony of that combination.… (mais)