Nineteenth-century Americans enjoyed spending time with friends and family, and without electronic gadgets to keep them busy, gathering around the piano to sing helped lighten the mood. The following song appears intended to simultaneously enlighten and entertain.
Sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.”
Come all ye young teetotallers—
Come with us while we go
To fight with old king Alcohol,
A brave and mortal foe.
Then rouse, my lads, then rouse ye up;
Come forward every one;
We’ll banish far the poison cup,
Nor stop till vict’ry’s won.
A hard old enemy is he,
And brave and bold in fight;
But labor hard—we’ll soon be free,
For God defends the right.
Then rouse, my lads, &c. [The chorus would be sung here.]
But though he may be brave and bold,
We’ll show what we can do;
We’re not the temp’rance men of old—
We go for something new.
Then rouse, my lads, &c.
“We touch not, taste not, handle not,”
What can intoxicate;
We’ll live and die without a blot,
And shun the drunkard’s fate.
Then rouse, my lads, &c.
Grog men may laugh, and joke, and sneer,
They laugh and tremble too;
For when the boys take hold, they fear
There’s something then to do.
Then rouse, my lads, &c.
And now, my boys, since we’ve begun,
The cause must never fall;
Let each man bring some other one,
And soon we’ll have them all.
Then rouse, my lads, &c.
Source: Cold Water Melodies, and Washingtonian Songster. Enlarged and Improved, ed. John Pierpont (Boston: Theodore Abbot, 1843), 28–29.
Evaluating the Evidence