Several Maryland lawmakers are hoping to replace the saber-rattling, Confederate-leaning state song with one that simply praises the state's natural beauty.
"Our state song, though historic, is rather borderline embarrassing," said state Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Montgomery). "It's gory . . . and I haven't found many people who even know the words to the current song."
Forehand is proposing that "Maryland! My Maryland!" -- a call to arms written during the Civil War by Confederate sympathizer James Ryder Randall -- be replaced with a song with the same title and tune but different lyrics, which was written in 1894, more than 30 years after the original.
Bellicose lyrics ("The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!") would be supplanted by tamer stuff ("We love thy streams and wooded hills, Thy mountains with their gushing rills").
Forehand's bill is the second proposal in as many years to change the state song.
Supporters of similar efforts in the past expressed skepticism that Forehand would succeed where they failed, particularly when the state faces such tough issues as the budget and redistricting. But some speculated a critical mass of opposition to the existing song may be forming.
Forehand already has one new convert: Edward C. Papenfuse, the state archivist, who previously objected to efforts to change the state song on the grounds that doing so abolishes an artifact of Maryland history. But this time, he said, he supports Forehand's proposed version.
"I suspect it was written in reference to the original 'Maryland! My Maryland!' " Papenfuse said. "It is certainly meant to be enthusiastic about what Maryland stood for in the 1890s and very easily could stand for Maryland today."
The current state song has been a point of controversy in the past. Those who want to keep the song argue it represents the state's past, for better or worse; those who want to change it say it is offensive and does not represent the state now.
The song describes a contentious period in state history. During the Civil War, the state sided with the Union, but only after Abraham Lincoln threw many members of the state legislature in jail to stop a secessionist vote.
Randall, a native Marylander working as a teacher in Louisiana, wrote the poem "Maryland! My Maryland!" in 1861, shortly after Civil War bloodshed in downtown Baltimore. The poem was meant as a call to side with the Confederacy, and in fact, many Marylanders did fight for the South.
Set to the tune of "O, Tannenbaum," the song was not adopted by the state until 1939, when the lyrics were actually written into the state code, requiring a new law to change them.
"The despot's heel is on thy shore," the song opens, in apparent reference to Abraham Lincoln. "His torch is at thy temple door." It goes on to describe "the patriotic gore/That flecked the streets of Baltimore," and calls on the state to the spurn "the Northern scum."
"Maryland has the only state song that calls for the overthrow of the federal government," said Montgomery County Council member Howard A. Denis (R-Potomac-Bethesda), a former state senator.
In 1980 in the Maryland Senate, Denis tried to abolish "Maryland! My Maryland!" The effort died quietly. Twice again in the 1980s, he and other legislators tried to nix the old song. They encountered staunch resistance.
It was a death threat that finally made Denis give up the fight, he said.
In 1984, someone called his office threatening, "If he changes the state song, I'll kill him," according to news reports at the time.
"I really started to feel uncomfortable with [efforts to change the song]," Denis said. "I'm a serious legislator, but all people wanted to talk about was this song. It was getting all of this attention."
The controversy quieted for some time but gained new momentum last year in a bill by Del. Peter Franchot (D-Montgomery).
The legislation that would have abolished the song failed, but the effort, spearheaded in part by a Montgomery County high school student who spoke at the General Assembly, brought credibility to the issue, Papenfuse said, and attention seems to be lingering.
The student's speech was "eloquent and quite persuasive," Papenfuse said. "Some heed should be paid to the voice of youth saying that maybe now is time to change."
The proposed alternative song's title, "Maryland, My Maryland," lacks the exclamation points in Randall's title. The lyrics are upbeat and idyllic, with pleasant images of Maryland as "the home of light and liberty," and they appear to have been written to be sung to the same tune as the current one.
The song was penned by John T. White, an educator and Frederick County native who was teaching in Cumberland at the time. But other than a brief biographical sketch in an 1898 collection of profiles of "many well-known citizens" of Maryland, little is known about White or why he wrote the song.
A constituent brought the song to Forehand's attention last year, and she drew up a bill between sessions.
The legislation, Senate Bill 19, is sponsored by Sens. Gloria G. Lawlah (D-Prince George's), Ida G. Ruben (D-Montgomery) and Leonard H. Teitelbaum (D-Montgomery).