History
The first lyrics were written in 1918 by Ballard MacDonald and the music by Robert A. "Bobo" King, who used the name Mary Earl. A bill passed by the Ohio General Assembly in 1969 made it the state's official song and in 1989 adopted an amendment to section 5.09 of the Ohio Revised Code which changed the original words to a new set, written by Wilbert McBride.
"Beautiful Ohio" was originally written as a love song by Ballard MacDonald whose lyrics depict a "paradise of love divine." When McBride rewrote the lyrics for the 1989 version he gave a much more accurate portrayal of Ohio by including things such as the state's cities and factories rather than two imaginary lovers.
Read more about this topic: Beautiful Ohio
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)