Ride, Sybil, Ride – Bonafide Joe | Official Lyric Video

"Ride, Sybil, Ride" is an original folk song by Bonafide Joe about the story of Sybil Ludington, the sixteen-year-old remembered for riding through the rainy night of April 26, 1777, to call out her father's militia after British troops burned Danbury, Connecticut. Original song by Bonafide Joe THE HISTORY BEHIND THE SONG What is well documented: On April 25, 1777, about 1,800 to 2,000 British and Loyalist troops under Major General William Tryon (also royal governor of New York) landed at Compo Beach in present-day Westport, Connecticut, and marched inland to Danbury, where the Continental Army had stored supplies. On April 26 they destroyed those stores and burned many buildings in the town. Colonel Henry Ludington commanded a regiment of the Dutchess County militia in New York, near the Connecticut line; his militiamen were farmers living across the district. Sybil, born in 1761, was his eldest child, so she was sixteen in April 1777. The Battle of Ridgefield: As Tryon's column withdrew toward the coast on April 27, 1777, Connecticut militia and Continental troops under Generals David Wooster, Benedict Arnold and Gold Selleck Silliman attacked it at Ridgefield and along the route. Wooster was mortally wounded. The British fought their way back to their ships, but with significant casualties. The ride, and the debate: No account of Sybil's ride written at the time has been found. The story first appeared in print in 1880, in Martha J. Lamb's History of the City of New York, which drew on information from the Ludington family. In 1907 two of her grandchildren privately published a memoir of Colonel Ludington that retold and expanded it. Historians continue to debate it; in a 2015 study in The New England Quarterly, historian Paula D. Hunt argued there is no reliable evidence the ride took place and traced how the story grew over the 20th century. Others accept the family tradition. Popular details such as the 40-mile route, a horse named Star, the hickory stick, a general (often said to be George Washington) coming to thank her, and the roughly 400 men gathered by dawn all come from that later tradition and cannot be confirmed. Paul Revere: For comparison, Paul Revere's documented ride on the night of April 18, 1775, covered roughly 12 to 20 miles, depending on how it is measured, before he was detained by a British patrol. The statue: In 1961 the Daughters of the American Revolution dedicated a bronze equestrian statue of Sybil by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington on the shore of Lake Gleneida in Carmel, New York. Smaller versions stand elsewhere, including in Danbury. ABOUT THE LYRICS The song tells the story as the tradition tells it. The ride, the 40 miles, Star, the general's thanks and the 400 men are the legend, not proven fact. The words spoken by the rider and by Sybil in the verses are lyrics, not documented quotations. "Two hundred fifty years" looks ahead to the ride's 250th anniversary in April 2027. It is about: • Answering the call when no one else can • Ordinary neighbors, one door at a time • How a story is remembered, and why it matters LYRICS The full lyrics appear on screen and in the English captions (CC). CHAPTERS 0:00 Spoken Intro – Paul Revere rode about twenty miles 0:30 Verse 1 – April night in seventy-seven 1:02 Verse 2 – The eldest daughter 1:33 Chorus – Ride, Sybil, ride 2:06 Verse 3 – One farmhouse window lit up 2:38 Spoken Bridge – No moon. No map. No lantern. 3:01 Verse 4 – Her statue stands in Carmel 3:32 Final Chorus – Every time freedom calls at midnight 4:09 Spoken Outro – The one nobody wrote a poem about CREDITS Original song by Bonafide Joe Visuals: AI-assisted illustrations in a hand-colored woodcut style, with slow parallax motion, gentle rain and no strobing. People are shown only from behind, in silhouette or at a distance; no real faces are depicted. #BonafideJoe #SybilLudington #AmericanRevolution #FolkMusic #LyricVideo