Same Song, Different Meaning

I was at a parade a few days ago when the brass band marching by played what I’m sure they thought was the Battle Hymn of the Republic. What fewer people know is that the song was popularized during the Civil War with completely different lyrics:

John Brown’s body lies a moldering in the grave, While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save; But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave, His soul is marching on.

It’s not surprising that this version is less popular. John Brown has been demonized and dismissed as “crazy” by the sort of people who get nostalgic for the confederacy, and with Texas determining the content of textbooks nationwide, that opinion has become the norm. I don’t support Brown unreservedly, although I do think his story raises an important and perhaps unresolvable question: When is an injustice so great that it must be fought with violence?

Although decried as a terrorist, Brown was hoping to minimize violence:

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.”

Anyway, thinking about John Brown’s Body reminded me of another song: When Johnny Comes Marching Home, the more popular, pro-war version of Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye. Which is, of course, deeply anti-war:

Where are your legs that used to run When you went to carry a gun Indeed your dancing days are done Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye. They’re rolling out the guns again But they’ll never will take my sons again No they’ll never will take my sons again Johnny I’m swearing to ye.

There are lots of songs out there with a subversive message that has been disregarded or lost. This Land Is Your Land has two extra verses you don’t sing in school:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me; Sign was painted, it said private property; But on the back side it didn’t say nothing; This land was made for you and me. In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple; By the relief office, I’d seen my people. As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?

What other songs are there that have been co-opted and changed to mean something very different?