Bible Songs — Temperance Songs

Key Note Song

There's a battle song to sing (song to sing, song to sing),

No. 1381
Tune KEY NOTE SONG.
Words Dwight Williams.
Music W. J. Bostwick.
Key G major
Singing key E♭ major
Time 4/4
3 stanzas

Words

There's a battle song to sing (song to sing, song to sing),An alarm bell loud to ring (loud to ring, loud to ring);There's a drum-beat to be heard,And a nation to be stirred;Strike the key-note, ring it out (ring it out, ring it out),Send it with a loyal shout (loyal shout, loyal shout),Send it with a loyal shout (loyal shout, loyal shout);Loud and long (loud and long), loud and long, loud and long;Strike the key-note bold and strong.

Think it not a skirmish light (skirmish light, skirmish light),'Tis to be a nation's fight (nation's fight, nation's fight)!Cities, towns, shall feel the stroke,Hills be darkened with the smoke,Horse and foot in battle heat (battle heat, battle heat)Shall together clashing meet (clashing meet, clashing meet),Shall together clashing meet (clashing meet, clashing meet);Not in play (not in play), not in play, not in play;It shall be a sturdy fray.

Hail! Columbia, dare to be (dare to be, dare to be)God's peculiar land and free (land and free, land and free);Brothers, let the key-note ring,Mothers, pray, and children, sing;Drive the traffic to the wall (to the wall, to the wall);Prohibition! shout it, all (shout it, all, shout it, all),Prohibition! shout it, all (shout it, all, shout it, all);Pray and vote (pray and vote)! pray and vote, pray and vote,And ring out a grand key-note.

About this hymn

As printed As printed: hymn number «1381» (large, left), title «KEY NOTE SONG.» centred (condensed capitals with larger initials); under it the epigraph on one centred line, «"Be not afraid nor dismayed ; * * for the battle is not yours, but God's."— 2 Chron. 20 : 15.» (old-style figures; the two asterisks mark the words left out of the verse); then «DWIGHT WILLIAMS.» at the left (words) and «W. J. BOSTWICK.» at the right (music), capitals and small capitals; «Martial.» (bold italics) over the first bar. No meter, no reference line, no running head. The three stanzas are interlinear, three lines between the staves of all five systems, numbered «1.»–«3.» in system 1. Inside the lines the ECHO of the lower voices is printed in small condensed type and in parentheses («sing (song to sing, song to sing), An»): the soprano holds her note while the alto and tenor sing the first half of the echo and the bass the second half (in the last system tenor and bass together); the echo is given here inside the verse line, exactly where the print has it. Each verse line begins with a capital; the long printed lines are given here one verse line per line. Syllable hyphens are joined («bat-tle», «a-larm», «na-tion», «dark-ened», «chil-dren», «loy-al», «traf-fic», «to-geth-er», «Pro-hi-bi-tion», «stur-dy», «Co-lum-bia», «pe-cu-liar»); the hyphens of the compounds «drum-beat» and «key-note» are the words' own and are kept. The print sets a thin space before «;», «!» and «:» («dismayed ;», «Hail !», «20 : 15»); it is closed up here; curly quotes and apostrophes are written straight («There's», «'Tis», «God's»). In stanza 3 «pray» after «(pray and vote)!» begins with a small letter, as printed. In stanza 2 the echo of the sixth verse line is printed «(clash-ing meet, clash-ing mest),» — an «s» where every other occurrence has «meet»; kept as printed (printer's slip, see uncertainties.md). Under the music, centred: «Copyrighted 1880, by J. E. White.» and the page number «589».