Queen of Battle

[James A. Landau]

I finally found my copy of that song---I had misfiled it under "filk songs".
(The noise you hear in the background is Mark Mandel snickering).

It was not sheet music, just three stanzas of the words.  For students of the
dreadful, here they are:

      Count off you cannon cockers, you redleg cannoneers
      We've been the king of battle for the past two hundred years
      The Grunts and Tankers need us to open up the way
      So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery
      So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery

      With rocket, gun and missle, we redlegs meet the foe
      Our fires are always deadly and we keep him on the go
      Whenever something's doing, they always send for me
      So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery
      So fire your guns 'til the battle's won, with the Field Artillery

      Our past is rich in coruage, in spirit, nerve and pride
      And when we're called to battle we take it in our stride
      So lift your glasses, gunners, and drink a toast with me
      As Redlegs all, we'll stand and fall with the Field Artillery
      As Redlegs all, we'll stand and fall with the Field Artillery

Well, maybe Fred Shapiro can add this to his quotation corpus as an
illustrative example of Sturgeon's Law "Ninety percent of everything is crud."

No idea of the tune.  It can be sung to "British Grenadiers" but even that
won't improve its literary quality.

The reference to "tankers" dates this song as World War I at the earliest and
more likely World War II or later.  "Grunts" meaning "infantry" is in the OED
with a first citation of 1969.

In the same misfile I found the sheet music to a song entitled "The Mountain
Battery":

     Stand up!  Stand up!  Attention!
     You redleg mountaineers.
     With your gun and your pack
     And your box of tack
     Noncoms and cannoneers.
     Baptized in Mindanao
     Beside the Sulu Sea
     With a tow and a tow
     And a tow row row
     From the mountain battery.
     With a tow and a tow
     And a tow row row
     From the mountain battery.

     For when we are commanded
     To open u the ball
     We slap our guns together
     And beside them stand or fall
     To right and left before u
     Our shrapnel bursts we see
     With a tow and a tow
     And a tow row row
     From the mountain battery.
     With a tow and a tow
     And a tow row row
     From the mountain battery.

This was written by Colonel Gerald E. Griffin while stationed in Cuba in
1906-1909.  The words and music are both derivative from "British Grenadiers" and
since the text accompanying the sheet music (which is photocopied from pp
49-50 of an unknown book) says Griffin wrote "songs and parodies", this song may
indeed have been deliverately written as a parody of "British Grenadiers".

           - Jim Landau