A first attempt at cracking "The Battle of New Orleans"

I've already mentioned that the synchronicity fairies keep bringing the Jimmie Driftwood song "The Battle of New Orleans," as made famous by the Spectacular Johnny Horton in 1959, to my attention in connection with the ongoing electoral circus in America. (Remember "Shadilay"? This is this year's "Shadilay." I'm not sure yet how or why, but it is.)

Here, for a little variety, is the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version:

I was taught this song in a public elementary school, which goes to show how much times have changed. Can you imagine kids today being taught a song that glorifies gun violence, cruelty to alligators, and so "problematic" a personage as Old Hickory?

Anyway, here's a first stab at an analysis.

First of all, we notice that singer who made the song famous was named Horton. Horton is also a Dr. Seuss character, an elephant, known for his repeated lines, "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, and an elephant's faithful one hundred percent!" (Johnny Horton had not yet released his first album when Horton Hatches the Egg was published.)

. . . unlike the British at the Battle of New Orleans!

Johnny Horton used to perform the song in a period uniform, holding a musket with a flared mouth like a trumpet.

And now we come to the lyrics themselves.

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin'
There wasn't as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Fire has more than one meaning, but when Donald Trump says, "You're fired!" he's not talking about artillery. Couldn't "We fired our guns" mean "We terminated the employment of several top-level defense officials"?

"We fired once more and they began to runnin'" could mean, among other things, that the firing of some officials led others to resign of their own accord.

We looked down the river and we see'd the British come
And there must have been a hundred of 'em beatin' on the drum
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood behind our cotton bales and didn't say a thing

President Trump has stayed pretty quiet and played his cards close to his chest -- unlike his enemies, who have been beatin' on the drum and making their bugles ring.

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets till we looked 'em in the eye
We held our fire till we see'd their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em -- Well . . .

To look someone in the eye is to tell him the truth, or to challenge him to tell you the truth.

"We held our fire till we see'd their faces well" means we waited for all our enemies to identify themselves and show their hand before striking.

We fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs 'n' powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind

Finding a way to fight another round even after your cannon has melted means continuing to fight even when everyone is saying you've already lost.

An allegator is one who makes allegations. (Alligator is etymologically el lagarto, "the lizard"; I'll let David Icke handle that one!)