“Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton is a classic “Americana” song. Quoting Infogalactic: “The Battle of New Orleans” is a song written by Jimmy Driftwood. The song describes the 1815 Battle of New Orleans from the perspective of an American soldier; the song tells the tale of the battle with a light tone and provides a rather comical version of what actually happened at the battle. It has been recorded by many artists, but the singer most often associated with this song is Johnny Horton. His version scored number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959 (see 1959 in music). Billboardranked it as the No. 1 song for 1959.[1]
One of my favorites, voice or instrumental. Jimmie Driftwood wrote the lyrics, the music is from an old fiddle tune called “Eighth of January”; which commemorated the battle.
Jimmy was a professor at John Brown University in Arkansas, where I attended many years later. The original song had many, many more verses than what was recorded. It was about a 30 minute song altogether.