(no subject)

[darchildre]

Survey question for American folks:

Were you familiar with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" before you encountered The Grapes of Wrath, or is my assumption that the song is common childhood knowledge for American kids due to my parents being weirdos?

(This question brought to you by my coworker mentioning that her 12 year old son thought Grapes of Wrath was a funny title and me being struck by the sudden realization that maybe not everyone could sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" before they were five.)

Comments

[mecurtin]

I'm a Boomer, it was something we sang in Music class (song time?) in public elementary school. We also learned "Dixie", "Camptown Races", "Waltzing Matilda", and many other Anglophone folk songs.

The high point of each year was when Pete Seeger visited, classroom by classroom. He taught us "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "The Unicorn".

[khronos_keeper]

I sang Battle Hymn of the Republic as a kid in elementary school in chorus long before I read Grapes of Wrath in like... 8th grade. Normally we would sing it around Memorial Day. We generally only sang the first couple stanzas rather than the whole song.

In retrospect this is probably why Fallout 3 with it's little patrolling eyebots singing Americana... war hymns? Feels very homey to me.

[james]

I knew parts of it as a child, but I also knew a jokey version (the burning of the school), which I probably just learned from other kids. I was a little kid in the 70s, and there were lots of folksy songs and hymns being taught and sung in choir.

[silveradept]

I knew the song before I knew the written work, but in the in-between, I think I had it pointed out to me where the grapes of wrath gets its name from, so it goes song→ Christian Foundational Writings →Steinbeck to me.

[frenchroast]

I did not/wasn't familiar with it as a small child. Certainly I didn't know any of the verses.

I think I heard/sang/learned it sometime around 9-10? The chorus I might have known before that (glory, glory, hallelujah, His truth is marching on). I also know that for at least awhile, I thought the lyrics to the chorus were "his troops are marching on".

I'm an older millennial, if that helps.