Song of the Week -- "Chester" by William Billings
William Billings is one of the most important early American (British American) hymnal writers, yet is too often overlooked by believing and agnostic songwriters for his influence and his perception of the human condition as both depraved and simultaneously so divine.
Billings was born in 1746 in Boston (which is why I claim he's British American) and was a tanner by trade. In those pre-revolution days, Billings new Adams and Revere and the other hot-heads, spending time in the taverns in their revolutionary public spheres, despite his bodily deformities. University of Houston's John Lienhard describes his appearance as a "gargoyle" and as a man addicted to tobacco, likely causing his early death at the age of 54 in 1800.
His first psalter, New England Psalm Singer (1770) was printed in Boston and engraved by Paul Revere. This is the first psalter entirely printed in the colonies -- Billings specifically waited to print the book until he could guarantee that the paper was produced in the New World, and not imported from Britain.
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| Revere's Copper Frontspiece to The New-England Psalm-Singer: or, American Chorister. Containing a Number of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Canons. In Four and Five Parts. (Never Before Published.). Composed by William Billings, a Native of Boston. |
Of the several psalms from the Psalm-Singer, the most popular was "Chester," which became an anthem of the revolution to rival "Yankee Doodle," which is in fact less revolutionary and so a safe children's song two centuries later. The etymology of "YD" is complex, as well, and deserves a fuller look at a later time.
First, Yankee Doodle as popularized during the revolution;
Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony,
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni'.
Chorus:
Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
Fath'r and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.
Chorus
And there we saw a thousand men
As rich as Squire David,
And what they wasted every day,
I wish it could be saved.
Chorus
The 'lasses they eat it every day,
Would keep a house a winter;
They have so much, that I'll be bound,
They eat it when they've mind ter.
Chorus
And there I see a swamping gun
Large as a log of maple,
Upon a deuced little cart,
A load for father's cattle.
Chorus
And every time they shoot it off,
It takes a horn of powder,
and makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation louder.
Chorus
I went as nigh to one myself
As 'Siah's inderpinning;
And father went as nigh again,
I thought the deuce was in him.
Chorus
[Etc.]The intention of "YD" is to rally the troops as fighting in media res -- to understand the fight within the battle, to remind the impoverished soldier of hearth and home.
Next Chester:
Let tyrants shake their iron rod,
And Slav'ry clank her galling chains,
We fear them not, we trust in God,
New England's God forever reigns.
Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,
With Prescot and Cornwallis join'd,
Together plot our Overthrow,
In one Infernal league combin'd.
When God inspir'd us for the fight,
Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc'd,
Their ships were Shatter'd in our sight,
Or swiftly driven from our Coast.
The Foe comes on with haughty Stride;
Our troops advance with martial noise,
Their Vet'rans flee before our Youth,
And Gen'rals yield to beardless Boys.
What grateful Off'ring shall we bring?
What shall we render to the Lord?
Loud Halleluiahs let us Sing,
And praise his name on ev'ry Chord.
Here, the song is more than an affirmation of purpose, but an actual call to revolution, seeing the cause of the colonists as part of a divine plan to usurp not only a single tyrant in George III, but against all tyranny. The call of "Chester" is for all men to rise up against all powers, Yorktown only a single thread of the larger series of revolutions of the 18th century. Music here, then, is part of the very ecology of revolution -- not to reflect the lifeworld of the soldier, but to create the soldier, to steel him [and her] with divine power, calling upon heaven to strengthen the cause.
"Chester" continued to be a favorite through the generation, but as the age of revolution diminished, its natural expectation for continuous uprising and call to arms against unjust powers became less appropriate for polite society. When "the" Revolution was over, Billings's "plot [to] our Overthrow/
In one Infernal league combin'd" was subsumed into a more civil "reverence" of revolution to a deference, believing in its necessity when farms and merchants are safe.
Bibliography
Lienhard, John. "No. 1188: William Billings." Engines of Our Inginuity. Houston: University of Houston, 1996. Radio broadcast. <http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1188.htm>
Be strong, and courageous.
Dixi et salvavi animam meam
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