“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”

Description

"Carry me back to old Virginny, There's where the cotton and corn and tatoes grow." The former slave yearns to return to the old master and the old plantation, there to "wither and decay."

Supplemental text

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
  Complete text(s)

          *** A ***

From sheet music published 1878 by Oliver Ditson Company
(copyright, however, belonged to J. F. Perry & Co.)
Title page inscribed
TWO PLANTATION MELODIES!    STANDARD AND POPULAR!
CARRY     ME     BACK     TO     OLD     VIRGINNY
SONG AND CHORUS  WORDS AND MUSIC BY JAMES A. BLAND  40

THERE'S      A      LITTLE      HAPPY      HOME
SONG AND CHORUS  WORDS AND MUSIC BY HARRY WOODSON   40

1. Carry me back to old Virginny,
   There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
   There's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
   There's where the old darke'ys heart am long'd to go.
   There's where I labored so hard for old massa,
   Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
   No place on earth do I love more sincerely
   Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.

CHORUS.
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There's where the old darkey's heart am long;d to go.

2. Carry me back to old Virginny,
   There let me live 'till I wither and decay,
   Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered,
   There's where this old darke'ys life will pass away.
   Massa and missus have long gone before me,
   Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
   There we'll be happy and free from all sorrow,
   There's where we'll meet and we'll never part no more.

Notes

James A. Bland (1854-1911), one of the leading songwriters of the 1870s, was a university-educated Black (born in New York) who spent many years in England. That he stooped to produce such a piece of nostalgia for slavery says something about the commercial climate of the time (the piece was probably written in 1875 and was published in 1878).

Bland also wrote "[Oh, dem] Golden Slippers" and "In the Evening by the Moonlight."

Until very recently this was the state song of Virginia -- though the official title was changed to "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia." Apparently the people of the state could handle the idea of people yearning for slavery, but couldn't accept a slight mispronunciation. - RBW

Cross references

• cf. "Way Down in Old Virginia" (theme)

Recordings

• Lucy Gates & the Columbia Stellar Quartet, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (Columbia A6015, 1917)
• Zack [Hurt] and Glenn [?], "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (OKeh 45212, 1928)
• Harry McClaskey, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (Gennett 4532, 1919)
• Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (Brunswick 475, 1930)

References

1. RJackson-19CPop, pp. 43-46, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. Krythe 11, pp. 158-176, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" (1 text, 1 tune)
3. Fuld-WFM, pp. 164-165, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny"
4. ST RJ19043 (Full)
5. Roud #15431
6. BI, RJ19043