[WARNING: contains racial stereotypes. No hatred is intended. It is presented in its original form as a part of music history.]
a 1852 popular song
words and music by Stephen C. Foster
One of Foster’s most popular songs in his lifetime. This melancholy but beautiful song has many variations in instrumental sheet music and player piano rolls. Similar in many ways to Old Folks at Home (Swanee River) it is a slow elegiac song in dialect written for the minstrel stage. Of course, the reality in slavery was that most slaves merely tolerated their masters out of necessity but desperately desired their freedom. It is ironic that we are to feel sorry for the slave master instead of the slave who was in a much more precarious position.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by Werner Tomaschewski:
Lyrics
1. Round de meadows am a ringing
De darkeys’ mournful song
While de mocking-bird am singing
Happy as de day am long
Where de ivy am a-creeping
O’er de grassy mound
Dare old massa am a-sleeping
Sleeping in de cold, cold ground
Chorus
Down in de cornfield
Hear dat mournful sound
All de darkeys am a-weeping
Massa’s in de cold, cold ground
2. When de autumn leaves were falling
When de days were cold
’Twas hard to hear old massa calling
Cayse he was so weak and old
Now de orange tree am blooming
On de sandy shore
Now de summer days am coming
Massa nebber calls no more
3. Massa made de darkeys love him
Cayse he was so kind
Now dey sadly weep above him
Mourning cayse he leave dem behind
I cannot work before tomorrow
Cayse de tear drops flow
I try to drive away my sorrow
Pickin’ on de old banjo
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Sung here by Fred Feild: