My Old Kentucky Home

DESCRIPTION: "The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home; 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay...." The song lists the troubles of the poor tired slave (soon to die? far from home?), "Weep no more, my lady... We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home far away..."
AUTHOR: Stephen C. Foster
EARLIEST DATE: 1853 (sheet music by Firth, Pond & Co.)
KEYWORDS: home slave exile age
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Dean-FlyingCloud, p. 72, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 249-250, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!" (1 text plus a copy of the sheet music cover)
Jackson-PopularSongsOfNineteenthCenturyAmerica, pp. 134-138, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hill-PoemsAndSongsOfTheCivilWar, pp. 217-218, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" (1 text)
Emerson-StephenFosterAndCo, pp. 18-19, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night" (1 text)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1527, p. 104, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" (1 reference)
Dime-Song-Book #9, p. 7, "My old Kentucky Home, Good-night" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 246, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text)
Messerli-ListenToTheMockingbird, pp. 83-85, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" (1 text)
Heart-Songs, p. 162, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jolly-Miller-Songster-5thEd, #118, "Old Kentucky Home" (1 text)
Colonial-Dames-AmericanWarSongs, p. 131, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text)
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, pp. 384-385, "My Old Kentucky Home"
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 188, "My Old Kentucky Home" (notes only)
Rodeheaver-SociabilitySongs, pp. 30-31, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
National-4HClubSongBook, pp. 26-27, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, KENTYHOM
ADDITIONAL: William E. Studwell and Bruce R. Schueneman, _State Songs of the Unites States: An Annotated Anthology_, The Haworth Press, 1997, pp. 38-39, "(My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night!)" (1 text, the cleaned-up version used by the state of Kentucky; tune on pp. 117-119)
ST RJ19134 (Full)
Roud #9564
RECORDINGS:
George Alexander, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Oxford 3354, n.d.)
Bowman Sisters, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Columbia 15473-D, 1929; rec. 1928)
Climax Quartet, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Columbia 512, 1900)
Ford Hanford, "My Old Kentucky Home and Old Black Joe [medley] (Victor 18767, 1921)
Harry Macdonough, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Victor 636, 1900)
Standard Quartette, "My Old Kentucky Home" (CYL: Columbia 2248, rec. 1894)
SAME TUNE:
A Trench Parody (File: NeTT037)
Omer Drome (File: NeTT038)
We Will Sing One Song (by Joe Hill) (Gibbs M. Smith, _Joe Hill_, 1969 (I use the 1984 Peregrine Smith Books edition), pp. 250-251)
My Good Old Irish Home ("Och my heart still yearns for my good ould Irish Home" by John L. Zieber) (Wolf-AmericanSongSheets p. 103)
At the Old Farm Home ("The sun shines bright from a clear and cloudless sky") (by A. P. Knapp) (Albert P. Knapp, _Grange Songster_, 1915, pp. 19-20)
To a Bald Head ("The sun shines bright on ???'s unlucky dome") (Harbin-Parodology, #184, p. 49)
NOTES [218 words]: Spaeth, p. 114, reports that the text of this song was derived from a poem called "Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night." Morneweck, pp. 406-408, thinks the song actually based on Uncle Tom's Cabin, as if that staunch Democrat Foster would ever go near an abolitionist tract! It appears, based on Howard, p. 176, that this is the original text in Foster's notebook, but that it does not fit the later tune. (Morneweck reproduces the notebook page facing p. 409; I would say the first verse is nearly final -- and so could have its final tune -- but it appears the chorus was still to properly evolve.)
Emerson, p. 29, notes that Stephen Foster's parents lost their home very early in Foster's life, and suggests that "Foster would compose so many songs about home in part because he seldom knew one for long."
TaylorEtAl, p. 95, says that the Rowan family of Bardstown, Kentucky were cousins of Stephen Foster's family, and that there is a story that theirs is the Old Kentucky Home mentioned in the song -- but there is no record of Foster ever visiting there. Howard, pp. 169-175, discusses his trip to Kentucky; his conclusion in effect is that Foster could have visited the Rowan house, but we can't know if it's the house in the song.
This is now the state song of Kentucky, with the racist references reduced. - RBW
Bibliography

Emerson: Ken Emerson, Doo-Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture, Da Capo, 1997?
Howard: John Tasker Howard, Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour, 1934 (I use the 1939 Tudor Publishing edition)
Morneweck: Evelyn Foster Morneweck (Stephen Foster's niece), Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1944
Spaeth: Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, Random House, 1948
TaylorEtAl: Deems Taylor et al, A Treasury of Stephen Foster, Random House, 1946

Last updated in version 6.8
File: RJ19134

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