A popular song from 1905
Words and music by Horace Strouse
The sheet music:
Lyrics
It was at a railway station
Soldiers had assembled there
Making preparations to march off to war
Many wives and Mothers gathered
Just to say one last “goodbye”
With a fond embrace they hoped
The fight would soon be o’er
Standing in the crowd unnoticed
With no loving ones to cheer
A soldier boy looked on with tear dimmed eye
For when the music started
With an old familiar tune
From way down in his heart there came a sigh
CHORUS
When the band played “Annie Laurie”
How it thrilled him with thoughts of home
And it brought back recollections
Of a girl he left alone
And a Mother old who’s waiting
Just to press him to her side
For that dear old strain
Filled his heart with pain
And made him wish he was home again
Annie Laurie was to be a soldier’s bride
VERSE 2
In the camp just after battle
Swords and guns were laid aside
For their happy faces showed they’d won the day
Some were thinking of their comrades
Who had died upon the field
Others of the loved ones in their home so far away
Round a soldier’s got they gathered
He’d been wounded in the fray
And many turned away to hide a tear
“Just raise my head” he murmured
“Tell the band to play once more
That old familiar song I love so dear”