Would Napoleon Bonaparte have liked Bluegrass? This is an interesting question. I think he probably would have. Sure, the music would have been more than a hundred years more “advanced” than what he was used to but likely the French emperor would have been familiar with folk tunes similar to those of the British Isles and France which gave rise to so much of our Bluegrass musical canon.
Moreover Napoleon must have been something of a megalomaniac. Any guy who systematically invades well armed countries in order to subdue them must be pretty confident in his supremacy. Napoleon certainly would have been flattered by musicians honoring his accomplishments.
Bluegrass and Old Time music have no shortage songs honoring the little emperor. The title of our most familiar tune, Bonaparte’s Retreat, is not exactly flattering but you have to admit there’s a whole lot of Bonaparte in Bluegrass and Old Time music.
By the borders of the ocean, One morning in the month of June,
To view those warlike songsters. Hear their merry notes and sweet light tunes
I overheard a female talking. She sang to me in grief and woe,
Conversing with young Bonaparte concerning the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.
In contrast to Bonaparte’s Retreat we do have Old Time tunes by the names Bonaparte’s Advance, Bonaparte’s Charge and Bonaparte’s Expedition. I have never played or even heard any of those tunes but I know they exist thanks to Andrew Kuntz’s impeccable scholarship. Check out www.tunearch.org.
Bonaparte’s Grand March is played to perfection on mandolin by Norman Blake on his album Flowers From the Fields of Alabama. Norman also recorded a couple of albums with the Irish band Boys in the Lough, from which some of the attached Bonaparte lyrics may be heard.
Just as the American colonies hoped to play the French against their British enemy in the Revolutionary War, so the Irish wondered about how Napoleon’s activities might affect their chances of shaking off British rule. The Bonny Bunch of Roses remains a popular Irish tune. Perhaps a good one to play on Saint Patrick’s Day a few weeks from now. The lyrics by the way are primarily about Napoleon Bonaparte’s son Napoleon II who was a forgotten historical figure because he died of tuberculosis in his twenties.
When next I saw Napoleon, Down on his bended knees was he
Asking a pardon of his mother who granted it most mournfully
Says he I’ll take and army and through tremendous dangers go,
In spite of all the universe, I’ll conquer the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.”
Napoleon II didn’t make any points with history fans after he dissed his birth mother (Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife) in favor of Napoleon’s first wife Josephine, saying that he might have attained his father’s fame had he a different mother.
In addition to all the other stuff Napoleon Bonaparte seems to be famous for, he is quite famous in our music for crossing things. Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine is a very popular Old Time tune. I’ve played that many times at Old Time jams. Bonaparte Crossing the Alps is also popular and there’s even the (obviously historically inaccurate) Bonaparte Crossing the Rocky Mountains.
Oh, son, don’t talk so venturesome For England has the hearts of old
There’s England, Ireland, and Scotland, Their unity have ne’er be broke.
Oh son think on your father’s fate On St. Helena his body lies low
And you must soon follow after. Beware the bonny bunch of roses, O.
Napoleon met his Waterloo.  The British and their allies proved too much for him in the end.
Bonaparte mania extends into our current era. Bonaparte in a Mexican Restaurant is an intriguing tune which is obviously of recent vintage. Bonaparte in a Knapsack on the other hand seems to be old traditional, another Bonaparte tune I have never heard.
Then he took one hundred thousand men And kings like us to bear his train
He was so well provided for he sought to sweep this earth alone
But when he went to Moscow, He was o’erpower’d by drifting snow,
When Moscow was a blazing there He lost the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.
The tune Bonaparte’s March into Russia seems to have originated in the upcountry of the South from which I hail. Return from Moscow, Return from Elba, Bonaparte’s Hornpipe. Maybe if we had just a few more Bonaparte tunes we could tell the whole Bonaparte story in music without any history books at all.
“Oh, mother, now believe me for I am on my dying bed,
If I had liv’d I would have been clever But now I droop my weary head.
And when my body lies a mouldering And weeping-willows o’er me grow,
The deeds of brave Napoleon Will sting the bonny Bunch of Roses, O.
