When Johnny Comes Marching Home

The lyrics to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" were written by the Irish-American bandleader Patrick Gilmore during the American Civil War. Its first sheet music publication was deposited in the Library of Congress on September 26, 1863, with words and music credited to "Louis Lambert"; copyright was retained by the publisher, Henry Tolman & Co., of Boston.[1] Why Gilmore chose to publish under a pseudonym is not clear, but popular composers of the period often employed pseudonyms to add a touch of romantic mystery to their compositions.[2] Gilmore is said to have written the song for his sister Annie as she prayed for the safe return of her fiancé, Union Light Artillery Captain John O'Rourke, from the Civil War,[3][4][5] although it is not clear if they were already engaged in 1863; the two were not married until 1875.[6]

Gilmore later acknowledged that the music was not original but was, as he put it in an 1883 article in the Musical Herald, "a musical waif which I happened to hear somebody humming in the early days of the rebellion, and taking a fancy to it, wrote it down, dressed it up, gave it a name, and rhymed it into usefulness for a special purpose suited to the times."[7]

The melody was previously published around July 1, 1863, as the music to the Civil War drinking song "Johnny Fill Up the Bowl".[8] A color-illustrated, undated slip of Gilmore's lyrics, printed by his own Boston publisher, actually states that "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" should be sung to the tune of "Johnny Fill Up the Bowl".[9] The original sheet music for "Johnny Fill Up the Bowl" states that the music was arranged (not composed) by J. Durnal.[10] There is a melodic resemblance of the tune to that of "John Anderson, My Jo" (to which Robert Burns wrote lyrics to fit a pre-existing tune dating from about 1630 or earlier), and Jonathan Lighter has suggested a connection to the seventeenth-century ballad "The Three Ravens".[11]

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is also sung to the same tune as "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" and is frequently thought to have been a rewriting of that song. However, "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" was not published until 1867, and it originally had a different melody.[12]

"When Johnny Comes Marching Home" was immensely popular and was sung by both sides of the American Civil War.[13] It became a hit in England as well.[14]

Illustration of a Zouave company on Civil War era broadside of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".

The original lyrics as written by Gilmore, are:[16]

When Johnny comes marching home again
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give him a hearty welcome then
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies they will all turn out
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

The old church bell will peal with joy
Hurrah! Hurrah!
To welcome home our darling boy,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The village lads and lassies say
With roses they will strew the way,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

Get ready for the Jubilee,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give the hero three times three,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The laurel wreath is ready now
To place upon his loyal brow
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

Let love and friendship on that day,
Hurrah, hurrah!
Their choicest pleasures then display,
Hurrah, hurrah!
And let each one perform some part,
To fill with joy the warrior's heart,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.

Some later recordings end each verse with "And we'll all feel glad when Johnny comes marching home."

"Johnny Fill Up the Bowl", which provided the tune for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", was a topical drinking song that commented on events in the American Civil War. It was frequently refitted with new words by soldiers and other publishers.[10]

A satirical variant of "Johnny Fill Up the Bowl", entitled "For Bales" or, more fully, "For Bales! An O'er True Tale. Dedicated to Those Pure Patriots Who Were Afflicted with 'Cotton on the Brain' and Who Saw The Elephant", was published in New Orleans in 1864, by A. E. Blackmar.

• Judy Garland sang When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again among other war songs in a medley during one episode of The Judy Garland Show, 1963.
• The children's songs, "Ants Go Marching"[18] and "The Animals Went in Two by Two" ("Into the Ark") re-used the tune and the refrain.
• The Pittsburgh Pirates organ player played the song each time second-baseman Johnny Ray would come to bat.
• In Finland the tune is known as "Kapteeni Koukku" (Captain Hook), a children's song with lyrics by Keijo Voudinmäki, and most recently recorded by the Finnish children's music band Hevisaurus on their album Jurahevin kuninkaat.[19]
• United States soccer fans sing the chorus to this song during matches as a patriotic hymn to support their national team.[20]
• The song or its melody has also been used in many movie soundtracks, including Cavalcade, 1933; Gone with the Wind, 1939 (a Confederate military band plays it in the background of a scene taking place in Atlanta); The Great Dictator, 1940; Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942; The Red Badge of Courage, 1951; Stalag 17, 1953 (it is sung by American prisoners of war); The Horse Soldiers, 1959 (the phrase "we'll all feel gay" is changed to "we'll all raise hell" when Johnny comes marching home); How The West Was Won, 1962; Dr. Strangelove, 1964; Run, Man, Run, 1968; The Crazies, 1973; adapted as "Na Bole Tum" in Baton Baton Mein, 1979; Chariots of Fire, 1981; Hell Comes to Frogtown, 1988; Born on the Fourth of July, 1989; Joe Versus the Volcano 1990; Die Hard with a Vengeance 1995; The Second Civil War, 1997; Antz, 1998; Small Soldiers, 1998; The Majestic, 2001; and Girls und Panzer der Film, 2015.
• A Re-arranged version of the song appears as the end credits in the first 4 episodes of the OVA for Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail, the sequel to the first 2 seasons of the show.
• The Clash used the melody and some of the lyrics for their song "English Civil War" on the Give 'Em Enough Rope album.
• The melody of When Johnny Comes Marching Home can be heard in the fade out of the song Out in the Fields by Gary Moore and Phil Lynott (1985) played on keyboard. The song has an anti-war theme.
• The melody is used in a section of the Georgetown University fight song.

• Morton Gould's classical arrangement "American Salute" of the song (1943).
• Harris, Roy (1934), When Johnny Comes Marching Home — An American Overture.
• The Andrews Sisters, a "Swing Era" sister act sang an upbeat "swing" version in the 1940s.
• British pop singer Adam Faith sang a version titled "Johnny Comes Marching Home", used over the opening and closing title credits for the British crime thriller Never Let Go (1960). This version was arranged and conducted by John Barry. Another version was released as a single, reaching No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart.[21]
• Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).
• A French version (without vocals) "Johnny Revient d'la Guerre" was recorded by Bérurier Noir, on the album Macadam Massacre (1983).
• American singer Angel Snow's rendition of the song appears on the compilation album Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War.
• A rendition performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, conducted by Gerard Schwartz, on the album "Portraits of Freedom: Music of Aaron Copland and Roy Harris" (1993).
• The Dropkick Murphys recorded their own version of the song, titled "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya", using old Irish lyrics to the song's beat.
• Jacob Miller used the melody for his song "Peace Treaty", which was written for the One Love Peace Concert in Kingston, Jamaica, on April 22, 1978, to celebrate a peace treaty between the opposing leading parties.
• Folk band Ye Banished Privateers recorded the melody with lyrics about undead sailors as 'When Ye Dead Come Sailing Home' for their album Songs And Curses.

• Erbsen, Wayne: Rousing Songs and True Tales of the Civil War. Native Ground Books & Music, 2008. ISBN 1-883206-33-2
• Lambert, Louis (Patrick Gilmore). "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". Boston: Henry Tolman & Co. (1863)
• Lighter, Jonathan. "The Best Antiwar Song Ever Written," Occasional Papers in Folklore No. 1. CAMSCO Music and Loomis House Press, 2012. ISBN 978-1-935243-89-2

• "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" , John Terrill (E. Berliner's Gramaphone (1893)—Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia.
• "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (Overview Page—Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia.
• "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" (Sheet Music), Oldroyd, Osbourne H. The Good Old Songs We Used to Sing, '61 to '67, —Project Gutenberg.
• "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" - A Civil War Song Marches On
• MIDI and description
• Library of Congress copy, For Bales
• The short film A NATION SINGS (1963) is available for free download at the Internet Archive