O'er the land of the free!

In celebration of Independence Day. These girls can sing! Absolutely amazing...

Cleaner audio on this one (skip to 0:37), but I think I still like the first one better...

If that doesn’t send a chill up your spine and make your neck hair tingle, well… you just aren’t American.

Or as my friend Jonathan would say (with his best redneck accent)… "Yer just not ‘merican"

They also, apparently, can sing the pants off The Battle Hymn of the Republic…

Major pet peeve alert… like everyone else on the planet, they do blow the last verse. It drives me nuts when people change the words of the last verse of the Battle Hymn. Nearly everyone changes the line to “as He died to make men holy, let us live to make me free…” Now think about that for a second. Written by Julia Ward Howe, in 1861, as an abolitionist’s hymn. Popularized during the Civil War. In a few years, thousands of ‘mericans would have soaked the earth of fields across the nation with their blood… to die to make men free.

Dying so that 150 some odd years later, all Americans can celebrate the founding of this country as a place "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Dying for this country, as men have been doing for 233 years, so "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"



Yeah, yeah, I know… it's not the Civil War anymore, we aren’t dying to make men free, “living” to make men free makes it more of a “churchy” song, blah, blah, blah…

It’s a BATTLE hymn, for Pete’s sake! Sing it like one!!!

I’ve told Paige multiple times, I have only one request for my funeral. Sing Amazing Grace, and sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic (ok, ok, so that’s technically two.) Sing them loud! Sing them well! Of course, like anyone who grew up in the CRC… you sing all the verses. And for my sake… sing the right words!

Just for reference, as originally published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862...



Oh, and for Amazing Grace… bagpipes would be awesome! (So it’s three requests. And no, I’m not Scottish.)

Oh, and while we're on pet peeves, a minor one... it should be Independence Day, not 4th of July. Calling it the 4th is like celebrating the 25th of December instead of Christmas!

So have a great Independence Day!