A Brief History of Political Songs

Music has been a colorful part of American political life since the very founding of our nation. Songs have served to elect, defeat, and make fun of political candidates as well as to advertise for important political special interests such as abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, or labor issues.  Campaign songs have been and continue to be a powerful means of spreading a candidate’s message to a mass audience. In the early years of American politics, political songs provided a catchy, memorable way to advertise a candidate to a relatively uneducated electorate. Early campaign songbooks and broadsides were quickly and cheaply created and set the song’s text to familiar melodies such as “Rosin the Beau,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and “Old King Cole” that most people would be able to easily sing. Campaign songs created by the political parties also focused on a number of common topics to either celebrate their candidates or to disparage the opposition. Songs that trumpeted the candidate’s business or military accomplishments or their ability to pull themselves up by their bootstraps were as popular as pieces that attempted to ridicule or demonize the opponent.

Note: Clicking on each image below will take you to the catalog record for the item in the collections of the Center for Popular Music.

This Fremont Songs for the People songster was printed for the election of 1856 that pitted the first ever Republican candidate John C. Fremont against Democrat James Buchanan and the Know-Nothing candidate, Millard Fillmore. Fremont ran on a platform that argued against the expansion of slavery but he lost the election to Buchanan who supported the idea of “popular sovereignty” that would allow the people to vote for or against admitting slavery in their new territories.