Connecticut western news., 1909-11-11
SONGS THAT NEVER DIE
By F, ReddeIl. Lecturer New York
 Board ot Education.

When we find practically the self same melody in use as a national or patriotic air by as many as half dozen different people of different lineage and language we are safe in assuming at the outset that there must be something very attrac- tive about the tune.
 The melody which we call America" has history equally ancient with that of Yankee Doodle" but as a piece of music it Is infinitely superior. An emi- nent American composer once said: "The man who wrote that tune knew just what he wanted" Its compass is only seven notes, thus bringing it within the rlnge of any voice. There is sim pie directness, force and majesty about it that easily accounts for its widespread popularity.
 For not only is the melody known and loved wherever the Union Jack of Eng land flies-and that alone means pretty extensive slice of the worlds territory but it also does duty as a national song of the German Empire and of the King of Bavaria; it is also sung and claimed in Hanover, Norway. Prussia, Saxony, Weimar, and Wurteuberg. It is like wise claimed by the Scots.
 In most music books we find the mel ody credited to Henry Carey, an Eng fish composer who lived i'll the first half of the eighteenth century, and who is perhaps better known as the authOr of that charming old ballad, Sally in Our Alley"
 But God save the King" was current long before Carey's time, and the truth seems to be that he was simply adapter of other mems ideas, although he claim ed both the English words and the music as his own.
 So early as the Gunpowder Plot, a hundred years before Carey's time, Dr. Jan Bull, an English orgauist, put forth the melody harmonized substantially as we know 1t now to words beginning God Save Great James, Our King" it. thanksgiving for the escape of the first Stuart king of England from the death prepared for Court and Parliament by Guido Faux (Guy Fawkes) and his fel. low conspirators in the vaults of the House of Commons.
 g However, there are as many accounts of the origin of "God Save the Kin s" as there are reputed authors of the "Letters of Junius,' and at one time the dis ute ragged as fercely. In the year TAO Carey's version came into vogue; it was sung at a state dinner given in l. ndCn to commemorate the capture of Porto bello by Admiral Vernon, and it was sung and played nightly in the London theatres in 1745, during the Scottish rebellion and the Stuart rising, as a mark of loyalty to the House of Hanover. Thenceforward its place was secure in the hearts of Englishmen forever.
 Lastly, the United States kindly adopted the hoary old tune and le-bap- tized it America" although anything more un- American than the monarchical song it would be hard to find. The words of My Country 'Tis of Thee'' were penned by the Rev. s. F. Smith in 1881 or 1882, at Andover. Mass, and were first sung in old Park Street Church, Boston, on a Fourth of July Dr. Smith simply "lifted" the old tune and renamed it "America," as he had a perfect right to do in view of the pre- vious checkered history of the song.
 Everybody knew the air, which per haps accounted for its quick acceptance by the American people, and "America" speedily became the best known and most popular of our patriotic songs.- New York World.