The Tennessee Volunteers

   He played a tune, a country tune with a banjo on his knee;

roused the weary soldiers to sing the melody.

All for one in hooch and song, toasted victory

and they sang about the girls they loved back home in Tennessee.

On the morrow the battlefield, tonight this verse for thee.

We’ll state our love with ink and word unequivocally.

No slumber dared for fear of fear of what tomorrow be.

Letters bound for the girls we love back home in Tennessee.

Now we wait the bugle-boy to hail the infantry;

to choose our place on the battlefield and meet our destiny.

We fighting men of honour ‘neath the flag of liberty.

We’ll spill our blood for the girls we love back home in Tennessee.

Rank and file we’ll face the foe, a gallant musketry.

Boys and men, we brothers all, we’ll run the enemy.

So, pray tonight our darlins, ‘fore ye slumber take to knee,

that we’ll meet again the girls we love back home in Tennessee.

With wanton hearts we know ye long to seek our company.

Our parting song still fills our night with a mournful melody.

We lay our heads on haversacks and watch the starry sea

and dream about the girls we love back home in Tennessee.

The spheres of lead cut them down they fell in the massacree’.

Delivered on the battlefield, the souls of decency.

Their dying words yearning for the way things used to be

and they called out for the girls they loved back home in Tennessee.

Half-mast the flags and gather round, we’ll praise their gallantry.

Draft a speech with heart and soul to show our sympathy.

Let the coffins bear the ‘stars and stripes’ to honour their decree

and present them to the girls they loved back home in Tennessee.

Poor labourers and carpenters and farming boys were we.

We left our homes and the ones we love to go and fight for thee.

Now the pipers drone the last refrain o’er the bones of dignity.

Well, play it for the girls we loved back home in Tennessee.