“Old Black Joe”

Description

"Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, Gone from the earth to a better land I know, I hear their gentle voices calling 'Old Black Joe.'" The singer, having outlived so much, says "I'm coming"

Supplemental text

Old Black Joe
  Complete text(s)

          *** A ***

From sheet music published 1860 by Firth, Pond & Co.
Title page inscribed
           Foster's Melodies
                 No. 49
              OLD BLACK JOE
                  SONG
         Written and Composed by
            STEPHEN C. FOSTER

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

CHORUS.
I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low,
I hear those gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

II.VERSE.
Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again,
Grieving for forms Now departed long ago?
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

III.VERSE.
Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee,
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go.
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

Notes

By the time Foster wrote this piece, his parents were dead, his marriage was troubled, and he was in bad financial shape. It has been theorized that this put him in a nostalgic mood. As always, he set it on the plantation -- but for once not in dialect. - RBW

Same tune

• Come Up, Dear Dinner, Come Up (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 121)

Recordings

• Criterion Quartet, "Old Black Joe" (CYL: Edison [BA] 3092, n.d.)
• Edison Quartette, "Old Black Joe" (Edison 8823, 1904)
• Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, "Old Black Joe" (Victor 35097, 1909)
• Ford Hanford, "My Old Kentucky Home and Old Black Joe [medley]" (Victor 18767, 1921)
• Riley Puckett, "Old Black Joe" (Columbia 15005-D, 1924)

References

1. RJackson-19CPop, pp. 156-159, "Old Black Joe" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. Saunders/Root-Foster 2, pp. 99-102+428, "Old Black Joe" (1 text, 1 tune)
3. Dean, pp. 126-127, "Old Black Joe" (1 text)
4. Fuld-WFM, p. 407, "Old Black Joe"
5. DT, OLDBLACK*
6. ST RJ19156 (Full)
7. Roud #9601
8. BI, RJ19156