Stephen Foster , considéré comme le « père de la musique américaine », fut un auteur de chansons influent aux États-Unis durant le XIXe siècle. Ses chansons, tel que Oh! Susanna, Camptown Races, My Old Kentucky Home, Old Black Joe, Beautiful Dreamer et Old Folks at Home demeurent populaires même longtemps après leur composition. Mickey Newbury lui dédie son album Lulled By The Moonlight Wikipedia
“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).
Contexte: 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
