... of the past, Archie, great post for us "oldies".

Speaking of "oldies", when I was a young teenager in the 1950's, I was a big fan of rock & roll music. One of my favorite singers was rockabilly star Johnny Horton, who sang the #1 chart hit of 1959, "The Battle of New Orleans", as well as such other hits as "North to Alaska", "Commanche" and "Sink the Bismarck". I still have my 45's of Horton's songs, as well as the LP album, tape cassette and -- now -- CD versions of his music.

Over the years, I played them often -- much to the amusement of my kids, especially when they were little. Youngest son Sean (born in 1979) particularly liked "The Battle of New Orleans". Several years ago, he and his girlfriend (now wife) got into country music. One night they were at a party with a number of friends and the country music station they were listening to played "The Battle of New Orleans". As it played, Sean sang along, amazing his friends that he knew the words to a 40-year-old (and, to their way of thinking, obscure) song by an artist who had been dead nearly 20 years longer than they'd been alive.

Here's to Horton, who was killed in an automobile accident in Texas in 1960:

The Battle of New Orleans

In Eighteen-fourteen, we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We looked down the river and we seed the British come
And there must have been a hunnered of 'em beatin' on the drum
They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring
We stood beside our cotton bales and didn't say a thing

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Old Hick'ry said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets till we looked 'em in the eyes
We held our fire till we seed their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em ...

We-l-l-ll

.. we fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannon balls and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind!

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.