Hearing the Americas

I’se Gwine Back to Dixie

1906

Hadyn Quartet

Charles Albert White

Victor

Philadelphia, PA

78 Rpm record

This song was written in 1874, and shows the typical minstrel preoccupations with the idea that black Americans were nostalgic for plantation slavery. The narrator sings about cotton and working on the river and longing for orange blossoms. He once swore he would never return, we hear, but now his heart yearns for Dixie. Minstrels shows typically included a few “sad negro” songs designed to cultivate nostalgia and longing. The “Haydn Quartet” recorded this in a combination of stiff formality and mock African American dialect

I's gwine back to Dixie,
I's gwine back to Dixie,
I's gwinw where the orange blossoms grow.
I hear them children calling,
I see them sad tears falling;
My heart's turned back to Dixie
And I must go!

I's gwine back to Dixie,
No more I'm gwine to wander,
I's gwine where the cotton blossom grow.
I miss the old plantation,
My home and my relation,
My heart's turned back to Dixie
And I must go!

I's gwine back to Dixie,
I's gwine back to Dixie,
I's gwine where the orange blossom grow.
I hear them children calling,
I see them sad tears falling;
My heart turns back to Dixie
And I must go!

I've hoed in fields of cotton,
I've worked upon the river.
I used to think if I got west
I'd go back there, no never!
But time has changed the old man,
His head as bending low,
My heart turns back to Dixie
And I must go!

I's gwine back to Dixie,
I's gwine back to Dixie,
I's gwinw where the orange blossoms grow.
I see them sad tears falling,
I hear them children calling;
My heart turns back to Dixie
And I must go!

Minstrelsy