Trapp Family (the movie): "Old Black Joe"

"Old Black Joe" is an American folk song composed by Stephen Foster (1826-1864) in 1860.

Thanks, to Aliret for this information!

1st verse
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling Old Black Joe. Chorus: I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low, I hear their gentle voices calling Old Black Joe.

2nd verse
Why do I weep, when my heart should feel no pain,
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again?
Grieving for forms now departed long ago.
I hear their gentle voices calling Old Black Joe. Chorus

3rd verse
Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee?
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go,
I hear their gentle voices calling Old Black Joe. Chorus

found on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Black_Joe

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Trapp
• family
• Familie
• treble
• boy
• soprano
• sound
• of
• music
• old
• black
• joe

[Aliret]

"Old Black Joe" is an American folk song composed by Stephen Foster (1826-1864) in 1860.

[Jairdan]

Thank, you so much...I added this to the video description.

[PeterPiper00]

It's funny that some people think that was a racist song.

It's basically a guy pining for the people he knew in his youth who have passed on and are waiting for him in the afterlife.

He's not saying, "oh I long for the good old days of Slavery".

[platanis]

Why, is there a racist aspect now?I don't get it...What does it say that could insult?

[NoiseLTD]

1853 Foster's fictional Joe was inspired by a servant in the home of his father-in-law, Dr. McDowell of Pittsburgh. The song is not written in dialect, W. E. B. Dubois points to the song as a piece standing apart from the debasing minstrel and "coon" songs of the era.

The song's "soft melancholy" and its "elusive undertone" brings the song closest to the traditional African American spiritual There is a wistful tenderness in the music.

[SeniorSuperstud]

I have heard a "politically correct" modern version of this song, where the words "Old Black Joe" have been changed to "Poor Old Joe," but I'm a traditionalist so I prefer the original lyrics as written by Stephen Foster. Another song written by Stephen Foster has actually been banned by some radio and television channels. It is called "Polly Wolly Doodle." In some places, films featuring Al Jolson, where he pretends to be Afro-American, have been banned.

[magnussmitt]

Just enjoy the superb voices and quit whining about some imainary racist aspect to the song.....it's not there.

[straightarrow372]

@ihopveggan racial, not racist. Of course, whenever white people mention race, we tend to get our heads bitten off.

[straightarrow372]

Exquisite. My mother was a teacher in Montclair NJ in the 1940's. At that time "black" was considered pejorative. Nevertheless, her African American pupils asked their white teacher to sing the song with them, because they liked the song and their parents forbade them to sing the song at home. Also Foster was regarded as an apologist for slavery -- so all his work was considered suspect. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, essentially.

[ihopveggan]

racist to me. 

[TraceyLouise2260]

I love listening to good music like this because it's authentic an tells a story of how they were

[GoldenGhettoFilms]

you can talk about the music... but it can only go as far as "i enjoy it" or "i dislike it". what's wrong with discussing the music AND racial aspects? even though i don't think there are any racial connotations much. let them talk. you don't have to read, nor respond.

[Pugoluvr2008]

Talking about harmony!!! Wow!

[1412nita]

ich liebe diesen film, obwohl ich zugeben muss, das mir die amerikanische version noch besser gefällt. vor allem im original