Bickerstaff's Books, Maps

Important Revolutionary War Patriotic Song

The Massachusetts Song of Liberty. [two conjugate leaves removed from] Bickerstaff’s Boston Almanack…for 1770.

[American Revolution.] [Patriotic Song.] Church, Benjamin.

[Boston]: Mien and Fleeming, [1769]. Page size: about 6 3/4 x 4 1/4.". Fragile with moderate staining. Brief old ink doodles/notations with decorative flourishes added in the margin between the two pages. Tiny hole costs one letter of lyrics. Item #3795

In the summer of 1768 -- a year and a half before bullets would actually fly at the Boston Massacre -- a musical skirmish broke out between patriots and loyalists. It began with John Dickinson, author of the Letters from a Farmer, composing “The Liberty Song.” It is considered one of the earliest patriotic songs of the thirteen colonies.

Dickinson’s ode to freedom aroused the ire of loyalists to such an extent that they responded quickly with a biting parody, fittingly titled, “The Parody.”

Not to be outdone, the patriots fired back shortly thereafter with “The Massachusetts Song of Liberty” or “The Parody Parodiz’d,” written by Dr. Benjamin Church. (This was a few years before he became known as the traitorous Dr. Benjamin Church).

The parody of the parody appeared for the first time with both words and music in Mein & Fleeming’s Bickerstaff’s Boston Almanack for 1770, as offered here.

A comparison of the lyrics between Dickinson’s original song and Church’s revised version reveals a definite escalation in the pro-Revolutionary rhetoric. While the tone of Dickinson’s version was rather philosophical and measured, Church went with a significantly more bellicose and provocative approach. The two versions offer fertile ground for a historical musicological analysis.

The almanac itself is rarely offered. Rare Book Hub’s sole listing is for a 1908 auction. Ex-inventory of Goodspeed’s Book Shop.

References: Sonneck, Bibliography of Early American Secular Music: pp.227-228. O’Neal, Early American Almanacs, Catalogue 25: 882.

[ICN 7831.].

Price: $1,750.00