Stephen Collins Foster , known as "the father of American music", was an American songwriter known primarily for his parlor and minstrel music. Foster wrote over 200 songs; among his best-known are "Oh! Susanna", "Hard Times Come Again No More", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" , "My Old Kentucky Home", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer". Many of his compositions remain popular more than 150 years after he wrote them. His compositions are thought to be autobiographical. He never saw the Sewanee River, never went from Alabama to Louisiana, and never lived in Kentucky. He has been identified as "the most famous songwriter of the nineteenth century" and may be the most recognizable American composer in other countries. His compositions are sometimes referred to as "childhood songs" because they have been included in the music curriculum of early education. Most of his handwritten music manuscripts are lost, but editions issued by publishers of his day can be found in various collections.
“Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
For I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.”
Oh! Susanna, W.C. Peters & Co. (1848).
Context: Oh I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee,
I'm going to Louisiana, my true love for to see
It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry
The sun so hot I froze to death; Susanna, don't you cry.
Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
For I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.
My Old Kentucky Home. As quoted at Anthology of American Poetry, by George Gesner, (1983).
My Old Kentucky Home. Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“All the world is sad and dreary,
Everywhere I roam.”
As quoted at Family Book of Best Loved Poems, by David L. George, (1952)
Old Folks at Home
Beautiful Dreamer, Firth, Pond & Co. (1862).
