Go Ahead and forget the lyrics
Today I was at work and decided that I would listen to 1950s music just to have a tad bit of change in my music repetoire. On the internet music channel comes the song "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton and so here I am enjoying the refrain which is one the type that you might be humming for days afterwards.
But then there was this lyric
We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
Yeah that is a real lyric in the song, I thought I heard it wrong as I was concentrating on doing my work but if you think about it, it is one of the most vile lyrics portraying animal cruelty I have ever heard and yet.... oh the refrain
Suffice to say it was a different time and the view our forefathers had about wild animals is not necessarily indicitive of how those same animals might be viewed today, but still .... um yeah!
EDIT: The lyric is most likely meant to be satire, basically saying we want you British soldiers gone so bad we will use anything we can to acheive that goal including using aligators as cannon fodder.
But then there was this lyric
We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
Yeah that is a real lyric in the song, I thought I heard it wrong as I was concentrating on doing my work but if you think about it, it is one of the most vile lyrics portraying animal cruelty I have ever heard and yet.... oh the refrain
Suffice to say it was a different time and the view our forefathers had about wild animals is not necessarily indicitive of how those same animals might be viewed today, but still .... um yeah!
EDIT: The lyric is most likely meant to be satire, basically saying we want you British soldiers gone so bad we will use anything we can to acheive that goal including using aligators as cannon fodder.