This spring, just as Election 2024 starts to warm up, Lost Radio Rounders will present a musical/historical program, titled “Songs America Voted By, 1840-1940.”
With six public performances of the “Songs America Voted By” program lined up, the group starts in March with shows at libraries, museums, historical societies and college campuses.
Back before TV, radio, and even PA systems, political parties would produce small booklets containing lyrics extoling their candidates virtues, while trashing the other guy. And in this time frame, it was all men running for office (how times have changed!)
The booklets would suggest that those lyrics should be sung to the tune of popular melodies of the day, in the form of parodies. The program also includes issue songs about women’s suffrage, abolition and temperance.
The “big bang” of campaign singing was led by the long defunct Whig party in 1840, and FDR’s use of radio for his fireside chats would put the first big nail in the coffin of campaign songs by 1940.
Although the program from Lost Radio Rounders does not deal with any aspect of the coming election, the program may certainly attempt to prove that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Lost Radio Rounders “Songs American Voted By, 1840-1940” Performances
Tuesday, March 26 at noon
H.V.C.C. Bulmer Auditorium
80 Vandenburgh Ave., Troy NY
FREE
Friday, April 12 at 10 a.m.
Bethlehem Public Library
451 Delaware Ave., Delmar, NY
FREE
Saturday, September 7 at 2 p.m.
The Berkshire Athenaeum (Pittsfield Library)
1 Wendell Ave., Pittsfield, MA
FREE
Sunday, October 20 at 2 p.m.
Guilderland Public Library
2228 Western Ave., Guilderland, NY
FREE
Sunday, November 3 at 2 p.m.
New Scotland Historical Association
7 Old New Salem Road, Voorheesville, NY
FREE
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