He didn’t stream it—but he would’ve loved it.
Abraham Lincoln couldn’t carry a tune, didn’t play an instrument, and once described himself as “unmusical.” But music moved him deeply. From comic banjo ditties to tear-stained ballads, these were the songs that stirred the soul of a man carrying the weight of a nation.
This playlist isn’t just entertainment—it’s emotional archaeology. A mixtape of memory and melody, curated not for performance, but for feeling.
It's a window into Lincoln’s inner world.
🎧 Lincoln’s Listening Habits
Abraham Lincoln preferred "parlor music" performances—especially from his friend Ward Hill Lamon, who traveled with a banjo and a repertoire of ballads. Lincoln used music as emotional release, often requesting songs late at night during the war. Though he didn’t perform, he listened with intensity, sometimes moved to tears. His playlist wasn’t about entertainment—it was about feeling. These songs gave him solace, stirred his patriotism, and reminded him of home. In a time of national fracture, music helped hold him together.
📱 Lincoln’s Playlist: Side A
Each track here was either requested by Lincoln, deeply moved him, or became part of his emotional landscape. These songs helped him carry grief, find laughter, and remember who he was before the war. They reveal a man of deep feeling, quiet reflection, and rollicking humor. illustrative of this phase of Mr. Lincoln's character,—the blending of the mirthful and the melancholy in his singular love of music and verse.
Together, they form the soundtrack of a soul.
📀 Track 1: “Twenty Years Ago”
“I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strew / Upon the graves of these we loved, some twenty years ago.”
Lincoln’s favorite. A ballad of childhood and loss that moved him to tears. Lamon sang it near the Antietam battlefield, and Lincoln quietly broke.
📀 Track 2: “The Blue Juniata”
“Wild roved an Indian girl, bright Alfarata, / Where sweep the waters of the blue Juniata…”
Written in 1844, this was one of the most popular parlor songs of the 19th century—and the first major hit by an American woman, Marion Dix Sullivan. A sentimental ballad about Alfarata, a Native American maiden singing of her warrior by the Juniata River, it later inspired the name of Alpharetta, Georgia. Lincoln often requested it; the song brought him visible comfort during the war.
📀 Track 3: “Ben Bolt”
"Don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt,—Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown,"
Thomas Dunn English wrote the poem "Ben Bolt" in 1842, and it was set to music by Nelson Kneass in 1848. It's a nostalgic song of fading youth and lost love. Its themes echoed Lincoln’s emotional scars, especially the death of Ann Rutledge.
📀 Track 4: “The Lament of the Irish Emigrant”
“There’s nothing left to care for now, / Since my poor Mary died.”
The song reflects the deep sorrow and nostalgia of an Irish emigrant who mourns the death of his beloved wife, Mary, while preparing to leave his homeland for a new life abroad. This song hit Lincoln particularly hard—especially the stanza containing the lines above.
📀 Track 5: “Home! Sweet Home!”
“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, / Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.”
A popular 19th-century song adapted from American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne's 1823 opera. The song's melody was composed by Englishman Henry Bishop. The lyrics tugged at Lincoln’s homesick heart. He reportedly wept when it was performed at the White House.
📀 Track 6: “The Doxology (Old Hundredth)"
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow…”
A solemn hymn Lincoln likely heard in church and at public gatherings. The tune—Old Hundredth—dates back to the 16th century and was traditionally paired with Psalm 100. Its most familiar lyrics begin with the above line.
The melody’s reverent simplicity matched Lincoln’s spiritual temperament and quiet moral grounding.
📀 Track 7: “The Sword of Bunker Hill”
“I leave you, mark me, mark me now— / The Sword of Bunker Hill.”
A stirring patriotic ballad—written during the Civil War Era (1861) by William Ross and music by Bernard Covert—that tells the story of a dying Revolutionary War veteran passing his sword and his legacy to his son. Lincoln admired its reverence for sacrifice and national memory.
📀 Track 8: “Dixie”
"Dar’s buckwheat cakes an Injun batter, / Makes your fat a little fatter; / Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land."
Loved by many, despised by others, “Dixie” is still among the most recognizable of all American songs. Ironically written by a Northerner, Daniel Decatur Emmett, “Dixie” debuted in New York in 1859 and quickly became a Southern favorite—eventually the unofficial anthem of the Confederacy. Yet Union bands also played it, and Lincoln counted it among his favorites. After the war, he asked a band to perform it at the White House, saying:
"I have always thought 'Dixie' one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it…I now request the band to favor me with its performance." (April 10, 1865)
📀 Track 9: “Listen to the Mockingbird”
“She’s sleeping in the valley, / And the mockingbird is singing where she lies.”
A very popular and wistful parlor song about memory and mourning, this 1855 song tells of a singer mourning his sweetheart, now buried beneath the mockingbird’s song. Lincoln was especially fond of it.
📀 Track 10: “The Blue Tail Fly (Jimmie Crack Corn)
“They lay him under a simmon tree / His epitaph is there to see / 'Beneath this stone I'm forced to lie / Victim of de blue-tail fly.' / Jimmie crack corn an' I don't care"
A rollicking, comic folk song Lincoln often requested to lift his spirits. Also known as “Jimmy Crack Corn,” it tells the story of a slave mourning his master’s death—possibly caused by a pesky fly. Lincoln used it as emotional relief, asking Ward Hill Lamon to sing it during moments of deep melancholy. Its playful absurdity made it a favorite antidote.
🎭 Lincoln’s Comic Relief: The Ditties That Broke the Spell
Lincoln didn’t just cry to music—he laughed with it too. When melancholy crept in, he’d ask Lamon to sing comic ditties like “Picayune Butler” or parody tunes like “Life on the Ocean Wave.” These weren’t playlist staples, but they were emotional lifelines—used to jolt him out of sorrow and restore his humor.
He once said Lamon’s “rudeness of kind intent” was exactly what he needed.
🎵 Track Spotlight: “Twenty Years Ago”
Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln’s close friend and musical companion, called this “the little sad song” Lincoln loved above all others. A simple ballad about childhood, lost love, and the passage of time, it touched the deepest part of Lincoln’s grief and often moved him to tears—on the Illinois circuit and in the White House.
“I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strew / Upon the graves of these we loved, some twenty years ago."
Lamon described Lincoln’s connection to the song with quiet reverence:
“[H]e loved simple ballads and ditties, such as the common people sing… but no one in the list touched his great heart as did the song of ‘Twenty Years Ago.’ Many a time… have I seen him in tears while I was rendering, in my poor way, that homely melody.”
“My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears came to my eyes; / I thought of her I loved so well, those early broken ties…”
This wasn’t just nostalgia—it was grief, reflection, and the quiet ache of memory. Lincoln didn’t sing, but he listened with his whole heart. Lamon recalled Lincoln and others sitting in silence, overcome by the song’s sorrow.
”But none were left to greet me, Tom, and few were left to know, / Who played with us upon the green, some twenty years ago.”
It wasn’t grand or operatic—it was humble, nostalgic, and deeply human. Just like Lincoln.
🎤 Final Track: Lincoln, Unplugged
So there you have it—Abraham Lincoln’s emotional mixtape. No earbuds, no Spotify, just a banjo, a few ballads, and a president who felt everything deeply. He didn’t stream it, but he lived it. From tear-stained hymns to comic ditties about flies, Lincoln’s playlist reminds us that even the most stoic leaders need a soundtrack.
If you’re ever feeling presidential-level melancholy, try “Twenty Years Ago.” If you just need to crack a smile, cue up “The Blue-Tailed Fly.” And if you want to reclaim something with swagger, blast “Dixie” and call it a win.
Lincoln didn’t just lead a nation—he listened to one. Loudly, emotionally, and sometimes with a banjo.
From the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.
Mac
📚 Works Cited
Most of the above information used in this posot came from Lamon, Ward Hill. Ed. Dorothy Lamon Teillard. (1911) Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847-1865. Washington, D.C.: Published by the Editor.
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