the Burning of Chambersburg (Bring the Song Original #3)

(check out the new HQ button - it helps the sound quality)

I was born in the small town of Chambersburg Pennsylvania 40 years ago last week.

I only lived there until I was a teenager, but I always felt something was - off there. 105 years before I was born there, it was burned to the ground... maybe that's why it seemed odd to me - maybe not.

A little messy - quick take in between cold medicine doses.

I think I got my facts straight - google the title of the song for the full story. Sad and strange.

I give full permission to cover this - in fact, I dare you.

The Burning of Chambersburg
----------------------

G F Am G

The town she was quiet when the rebels they came
But she'd howl like the devil 'for it was over
Jubal Early had her put to the flame
For the slaughter on the Shanendoa


General Lee himself had once left her whole
We'd bore them twice before
But all that would change with Jubal's raid
The last day of July 1864


(chorus)
F Am G
The day they burned our town
The war carried us down
Though in the ashes we were found
We were never quite the same

McCausland and two cavalry brigades
Rolled in at three in the morning
They outnumbered the union boys 26 to 1
Wouldn't have mattered if we'd had a warning

Jubal's men asked for 100 thousand in gold
Or they'd burn us and take it as plunder
They had revenge in in their hearts
And Johnson's big guns to plow Chambersburg under

(chorus)

Only sixteen miles from the mason-dixon line
The war had left us in tact
It took the first torch to wood and the first man to fall
before we'd see it as fact

The warehouse was the first to go
Then the courthouse and our town hall
Before they were done the city would burn
400 buildings would fall

(chorus)

We caught a reb captan alone in a house
Filling his pockets to the brim
We shot him in the back and ran for the fields
And let the damn fires take him

They burned us for the slaves we had sheltered
They burned us for the fires in Dixie
They burned us because that's the way of these things
In a world starved of its heart and its pity




(chorus)

The town she was quiet when the rebels they came
But she'd howl like the devil 'for it was over
Jubal Early had her put to the flame
For the slaughter on the Shanendoa

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Grumpycoyotetunes
• Bring
• the
• song
• challenge
• original
• songs
• CD
• civil
• war

[Sharkwell]

Great, sad story - great cat-leap, too. Thanks for such deep song-writing, quite generally speaking for what I've watched on your channel...

[uke5417]

*****

[kookyuke]

Grumpy,

Made between taking cold medicine? Do you fake illness (like I do) to miss work and play the uke! Great job and :"Bring the Song" is a great idea....don't know if I can write one that quick....but if I ever start to write.....I promise to torture u with it!

Great VIDS keep postin!

[babeokelly]

cool song,great story telling

[mysticcynic]

Really dig it Coyote! Great story, Johnny Horton has nothing on you!

[richardjhort]

You're certainly getting the hang of this song writing malarky! Great song.

[4DJB25]

Dang good work constructing the song. The performance sold it for me though.

[fourteentwelve]

You're a wonderful storyteller Grumpy! This song is fantastic. It really tells the story well, and totally fits with your style of singing and playing.

[mctrmt]

Wonderful! You're good at the ballad thing.

[watchyertopknot]

nice personal reflection