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Swing Around the Circle

Music and Lyric by David W. Jacobsen
Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved.

If I could stitch the whole together
As I would
Needle thread come together,
pierce the fabrics

No one thought that I'd be here
but I stand
Where I make alterations
As I see them
Not so fast now
I am in command

Union was the cause not
Freedom
Oh no, not on my watch

Swing around the circle
You can take your shots at me
Swing around the circle
I care not for my dignity
Do you know how far I've come?

In my prime
If you'd hear the words I'd say
The whole crowd they'd always stop and listen

From the day
My father traded his life
They chose then my profession
But I'd trade it in for the words
That I'd craft to play their champion

Don't talk of injustice
I came from nothing
To be where I am now

I'm not here to offer changes
Beyond what we must
You don't know what I have been through
I rose up from dust
To be where I am

Swing around the circle
You can take your shots at me
Swing around the circle
I care not for my dignity
Do you know how far I've come?

They tried to take me out
I'm still here
You can say what you like
But I'm still standing

And one day I'll be back
Now just you see
Right where they tried to knife me
Vindicated in my last
Days I return and
You can't stop me

Union was the cause not
Freedom
Oh no, not on my watch

Swing around the circle
You can take your shots at me
Swing around the circle
I care not for my dignity

Swing around the circle
Swing around the circle
Do you know how far I've come?

Notes:

Andrew Johnson was our worst president in many ways. He was monstrously racist in a time when most white people were pretty racist to begin with. He took it to another level, and he was in charge when it was time to figure out what to do with the South after the civil war. The tiny compelling angle to his story is just how far he rose, coming from abject poverty to be a senator, vice-president, and accidental president.

"Swing around the circle" was the name given to Johnson's ill-fated speaking tour to drum up support in the 1866 mid-term election for congressional candidates that would support him. It did not go well. He was the first president to be impeached and only survived by one vote in the Senate. After being president, he would get elected back to that same Senate that almost ejected him from office, but would die soon after.

I read Andrew Johnson (The American Presidents Series) by Annette Gordon-Reed to write this song.

From the album Potus
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