You know, this is solely my own opinion, but I’ve never really liked how modern versions of this beautiful song tend to change the original lines (shown here) “as He died to make men holy/let us die to make men free” for “as He died to make men holy/let us live to make men free.”
…Like, I fully understand the reasoning, but this is a marching song (written during the American Civil War), to be sung by Union troops (who indeed died by the hundreds of thousands), to the tune of an already-popular song about a man who gave his life for the abolitionist cause (and whose last written words were, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”)
When you change that line, there’s just a certain historical context and gravity that gets removed.
(via englishable)
