Maryland, Whose Maryland? The quest for a new state song continues with House bill

Maryland state Delegate Susan McComas, a Harford County Republican and member of the state’s rural caucus since 2003, has received a new accusation in recent weeks: “being ‘woke.’ ”

The reason: she thinks that Maryland (like 48 other states in the union) should have a state song.

“We’ve gotten all kinds of negative comment,” said McComas, who introduced a bill that creates a task force to propose a new state song to the General Assembly, during an interview in her House office. The legislation does not pick favorites or even the members of the task force (under the bill, the governor and legislative leaders do that).

On the day before the March 14 bill hearing, McComas’ chief of staff was calling those who signed up unfavorable and were against the bill, explaining that the idea was for a task force to propose a new state song, not a new state song right away. That was news to at least one person called.

“These folks don’t even know what it’s about,” said McComas, 15 years a member on the town commission of Bel Air before coming to Annapolis for a seat in the House over 20 years ago.

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Maryland has not had a state song since the old song was repealed in 2021

McComas’ idea is not exactly new, but it has renewed relevance after the old state song was repealed by the Maryland General Assembly three years ago. (The old song was written from Louisiana during the first month of the Civil War in 1861 and selected by the Maryland government in 1939.)

In 2015, a committee, led by the state archivist, met and issued a report with recommendations to repeal and replace the state song.

The old song advocated the state’s secession from the Union, calling on the state to “(spurn) the Northern scum” and “burst the tyrant’s chain,” an allusion to then-president, Abraham Lincoln, who was a staunch supporter of the union of the United States.

It took nearly six years from the committee’s 2015 report for the repeal alone to transpire.

McComas, who was one of 38 House members to vote against the repeal bill back in 2021, said of the old song during an interview this month: “Some of the stanzas were pretty rough,” mentioning specifically the line about Lincoln as tyrant.

Maryland’s governor in 2021, Republican Larry Hogan, called the old song “a relic of the confederacy that is clearly outdated and out of touch” at the time of the repeal. Yet no replacement was then selected by the Legislature.

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A new song should be ‘inclusive of Maryland’s history,’ delegate says

In a March 14 interview outside the House committee room where the task force bill had just been heard, Del. Jazz Lewis, D-Prince George’s, readying to testify on his own bill, one to replace “Columbus Day” in certain provisions of Maryland law with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” put the challenges of having a new state song that unifies in perspective.

“I think absolutely (a state song could be a unifier) if folks are willing to participate in the bill that’s presented in a meaningful and thoughtful way,” said Lewis, the House Majority Whip. McComas’ legislation, like his own on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, has no co-sponsors this year.

He said a new state song should be “something that’s inclusive of Maryland’s history,” mentioning the indigenous people who lived in the area for thousands of years prior to statehood and the original settlers. Lewis said a state song should also include “people who live here now and will live in the future and all of their diversity.”

Lewis, present during the hearing on McComas’ bill, but not on the committee of jurisdiction, said he had not really reviewed the legislation. It’s one of over 1,500 House bills alone brought forth in this year’s 90-day session.

Of a new state song, Lewis, a senior policy advisor to U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said: “If people are open, it could be great.” He added: “It’s a big ‘if’ there.”

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‘Maryland, my Maryland, I’m coming back again’?

One of the people who tried to wrestle Maryland’s history into a new state song is U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who served as a state senator representing Montgomery County for nearly a decade until his election to Congress in 2016.

He and piano player Steve Jones put forward an updated “Maryland, My Maryland” subtitled “The Free State Song” in the tumultuous summer of 2020. While the lyrics allude to significant Marylanders in history like the abolitionist Frederick Douglass from the state’s Eastern Shore, the refrain pays homage to the state’s geographic diversity.

“Maryland, my Maryland/I’m coming back again/From the western mountains to the Ocean City shore,/Rockville to Baltimore,” a transcript of the song’s lyrics state.

“It celebrates Maryland heroes like Frederick Douglass, Rachel Carson and Elijah Cummings, to express pride in the Free State’s struggles and boundless hope for the future,” said Raskin, in a March 14 email, referring respectively to the abolitionist, the nature writer, and the U.S. congressman and former state delegate who died the year before the song was written.

“Maryland’s state song should promote the freedom and democracy we have nourished here,” Raskin said.

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‘It seems wrong that we don’t have a state song,’ Republican sponsor says

During the March 13 interview and during her testimony, McComas went through notable moments that have occurred in the state: General George Washington resigning his commission at the State House, the defense of Baltimore during the War of 1812, the arc of history from the slave trade at the Annapolis docks to a Black governor and the largest Black caucus in the U.S.

“Maryland has a lot to be proud of, and we should have a state song,” said McComas, during the interview. “It seems wrong that we don’t have a state song that can give it the gravitas and the respect that it deserves.”

She said the bill, which proposes a nine-member task force with two senators and two delegates appointed by their respective chamber’s leaders and representing each party, along with the governor appointing two members of the public and three members from various music and arts groups in the state, is designed to “create some guardrails” as a new song is recommended.

“We need something that’s dignified,” McComas said. Asked if she had any preferences on a state song, she said “no” three times before adding: “I was a bad piano player, (a) mediocre clarinet player and I’m not a very good singer.”

Two states McComas where lived previously (Wyoming and Colorado) both have state songs, she noted. (In the United States, New Jersey is the only other state without one).

“This is an opportunity to showcase the state,” she said, “The citizens need to have it too.”

Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at dweingarten@gannett.com or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2.

This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: One of two states without a song, new Maryland bill looks for a change