Hearing the Americas

Old Folks at Home

1901

Arthur Collins, S.H. Dudley and the Ancient City Quartet

Stephen Foster

Edison

Edison Cylinder

Stephen Foster wrote "Old Folks at Home," also known as "Way Down Upon the Swanee River," for E.H. Christy's Minstrels in 1851. The song quickly became a staple of the Minstrel show. Foster, the descendent of Irish Immigrants from Derry, os often said to have borrowed heavily from Irish melodies for his tunes, and displaced the immigrants' longing for his homeland into imaginary black folks longing for the plantation. Arthur Collins and S.H. Dudley recorded this Edison cylinder in 1901. It opens with a band accompanied by “bones,” the clacking rib bones common in the minstrel show. It then moves to a joke told in allegedly African American dialect before a performance of “Old Folks at Home,” first with solo voice and then with the “Ancient City Quartet.”

Way down upon de Swanee Ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere's wha de old folks stay.

All up and down de whole creation
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.

Chorus
All de world am sad and dreary,
Eb-rywhere I roam;
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home!

2nd verse
All round de little farm I wandered
When I was young,
Den many happy days I squandered,
Many de songs I sung.
When I was playing wid my brudder
Happy was I;
Oh, take me to my kind old mudder!
Dere let me live and die.

3rd Verse
One little hut among de bushes,
One dat I love
Still sadly to my memory rushes,
No matter where I rove.
When will I see de bees a-humming
All round de comb?
When will I hear de banjo strumming,
Down in my good old home?

Minstrelsy