Babylon Is Falling

DESCRIPTION: "Way up in the cornfield where you hear the thunder, That is our old forty pounder gun, When the shells are missin' then we load with pumpkins, All the same we make the cowards run." The slave rejoices to triumph over the master
AUTHOR: Henry Clay Work
EARLIEST DATE: 1863 (sheet music published by Root & Cady and by S. Brainard's Sons)
KEYWORDS: Civilwar battle slave
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Work-SongsOf-Henry-Clay-Work, pp. 31-34, "Babylon Is Fallen" (1 text, 1 tune, a copy of the original sheet music)
Randolph 229, "Babylon Is Falling" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-SongsOfTheCivilWar, pp. 320-321, "Babylon Is Fallen" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenway-AmericanFolksongsOfProtest, p. 103, "Babylon is Fallen" (1 text)
Colonial-Dames-AmericanWarSongs, pp. 91-92, "Babylon Is Fallen" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #74, p. 6, "Babylon is Fallen" (6 references)
Dime-Song-Book #12, p. 16, "Babylon is Fallen" (1 text)
DT, BBLNFALL
Roud #7706
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Kingdom Coming (The Year of Jubilo)" (theme)
NOTES [99 words]: Not to be confused with the hymn, "Babylon Is Fallen." Unfortunately for those who try to keep things straight, it appears that "Babylon Is Fallen" is the correct title of this piece also; Edwin Wolf 2nd, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Political Broadsides 1850-1870, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963, p. 6, lists six broadside prints and notes that some of them add to the original text. Interestingly, none of these were by Root & Cady, which published this and most of Henry Clay Work's other songs, so there must have been even more printings than those listed by Wolf. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: R229

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