Hogan to sign bill eliminating pro-Confederacy Maryland state song
Hogan has until the end of the month to sign or veto the more than 800 bills the Maryland General Assembly passed during its recent 90-day session. Any bill that he doesn’t take action on will go into effect without his signature. He signed dozens into law in April.
“Maryland, My Maryland” features lyrics drawn from an 1861 poem by James Ryder Randall, who was distraught about a friend shot during a melee when Union troops marched through Baltimore en route to Washington at the start of the Civil War. It’s set to a tune most people know as “O Christmas Tree.”
The poem’s opening line, “The despot’s heel is on thy shore,” is generally understood to be a reference to President Abraham Lincoln. Randall urges Marylanders to “avenge the patriotic gore / that flecked the streets of Baltimore.” By the eighth verse, Randall suggests that being wounded for the cause — “better the fire upon thee roll” — is preferable to suffering “crucifixion of the soul.”
“Maryland, My Maryland” has been the state song for 82 years and once was commonly played at ceremonial events, sung at the Preakness Stakes thoroughbred horse race and rung from the bells at the University of Maryland’s Memorial Chapel. As more people became aware of the history behind the lyrics, public performances dropped off. It was not performed at the 2020 Preakness.
Read more: https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-hogan-state-son-20210506-bbkxexyuyvc5zhkbasa4nzq2a4-story.html
