Bugle, Fife & Drum

Verse IX

I hear the distant thunder-hum, Maryland!
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland!

Like a lot of the best things, Maryland, My Maryland wasn’t written in the state house. In the 1930s it was decided upon to become the official state song, but it'd been penned sixty years before that by one Mr. J. Ryder Randall. It is sung in part each year at the Preakness Stakes and I bet if you go digging at some estate sale as far west as Cumberland you'll find an old worn copy – framed up and just looking for a place to hang.