3.6 (popular)
Tune of the Day: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
This song is generally credited to the Union Army bandmaster Patrick S. Gilmore, who published it in 1863 under the pseudonym ‛Louis Lambert’. It is similar to the Irish antiwar song “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”, which is presumed to be the original on the basis of oral evidence, although no published version is known to pre-date “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”.
This tune has been used in the soundtracks of several movies, including Gone with the Wind, Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Die Hard With a Vengeance. It was also used in some episodes of The Simpsons.
You may also know this song for its use as a nursery rhyme, as it's the tune of “The Ants Go Marching One By One” (Hurrah! Hurrah!) and “The Animals go in Two by Two”.