Origin: Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

Subject: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: Les B
Date: 05 May 01 - 01:46 AM

I'm perplexed. I thought that James Bland, who composed "Golden Slippers" and "In the Evening by the Moonlight", also created "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" in about 1885.

In skimming through a facsimile copy of Briggs' Banjo Instructor, circa 1855, one of the first tunes (no words) in it is "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny"! I don't read music well, but the Briggs melody looks generally like the Bland tune.

So... was the tune written first and then Bland added the words ? Or, are there two versions with the same title ?? Or, is there something funny going on here ??? Historians ?

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: nutty
Date: 05 May 01 - 05:53 AM

The date of this Broadside in the Bodleian Library is 1830 - 1840, although it doesn't give a tune the words had obviously been written some time before that date.

CARRY ME BACK

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: GUEST,Ole Bull
Date: 05 May 01 - 08:09 AM

Before Bland there was an earlier and very popular song called "The (De) Floating Scow of Old Virginia" which was much pirated often by the line in the refrain which is "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia." This is the broadside above (questionable dating, more like 1850 than 1830) and also the song you find in in Briggs. Charles White claimed authorship and it was published as early as 1847. It became a minstrel standard.

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: Les B
Date: 05 May 01 - 12:23 PM

Thanks guys - very interesting. Ole Bull - I'd like to see your list sometime of Civil War era songs & tunes. Thanks again.

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: Mad Maudlin
Date: 05 May 01 - 12:27 PM

Ole Bull - I'd love to see your list, too. Could yoiu post it here or mail it to me? That would be great! Thanks in advance!

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: GUEST,Ole Bull
Date: 07 May 01 - 03:00 PM

I have about 365 pop tunes from about 1820 to 1865, some duplicate publications and alternate titles, in an excell spreadsheet with fields: YEAR PUBL TITLE SOURCE ATTRIB.(to) It's a work in progress. So how would I get this to you who are interested?

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: Rex
Date: 07 May 01 - 05:15 PM

Ahem, well if I may, I would be one of those who are interested. How do you send an Excell file? Heck! I don't even know how to operate one. Most of what I do with files is still in text files or dare I say it, DOS. That said, I still am interested. Perhaps we can compare notes.

Rex

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginn
From: GUEST,Ole Bull
Date: 07 May 01 - 05:42 PM

Rex, this is no problem for me to change it from Excell to text (.txt). There will be either a comma, space or tab between fields. It's a lot to post on this thread don't you think. It should be emailed I guess.

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From:
Date: 07 May 01 - 08:25 PM

I have heard (could be mistaken) that this was written by an African-American in the post Civil War days. mg

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 May 01 - 09:00 PM

There is a book for sale on Ebay today which offers a history of 14 different songs including "Carry Me Back..." I will see if I can find it again.

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 May 01 - 09:07 PM

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=33977&messages=9#457485

It closes in a little over an hour and is selling at $3.50.

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: Allan C.
Date: 06 May 03 - 03:37 AM

I just now came across the sheet music for the Bland song in a guitar and banjo instruction booklet, published in 1880, that can be found here. If you look carefully, you will discover how to see the rest of the pages and how to get clearer and closer images.

This is just one of the wonders to be found in the collection of African-American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 (from Brown University).

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: Allan C.
Date: 06 May 03 - 03:53 AM

Here is a bit of history and an update of the song's current status in Virginia:
Written in 1875 by prolific African-American composer and popular entertainer James Bland, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" (originally known as "Virginny") was adopted in 1940 as the official state song of Virginia. In 1970, then-Senator Douglas L. Wilder objected to the song's lyrics with their romanticized view of slavery. This objection officially initiated a controversy that remains unresolved three decades later.

During his tenure as governor (1990-1994), Wilder continued to urge retirement of "Carry Me Back," and in 1997, the song finally was relegated to the enigmatic status of "State Song Emeritus." A 1998 competition to pick a new state song resulted in a short list of eight finalists. Since then, the process has continued to attract international attention and controversy. One contestant filed a lawsuit. A bill to make sausage maven and political donor Jimmy Dean's anthem "Virginia" the official song led to allegations of favoritism and influence peddling. Now in hiatus, the subcommittee has no immediate plans to reconvene, and any vote would have to pass both houses of the General Assembly, with the governor having the final word.

Source: University of Virginia Library, Lift Every Voice - Music in American Life which is a very nice resource, complete with some fine sound bytes.

Subject: Lyr Add: CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINIA
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 06 May 03 - 09:08 PM

The old minstrel song from 1847 ain't bad. A very few dialect words to change, perhaps, but the song is not strongly blackface.

Lyr. Add: CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINIA
(The Floating Scow of Old Virginny)

The floating scow of Old Virgilly
I work'd in from day to day,
A fishing 'mongst de oyster beds,
To me it was but play.
But now I'm growing very old,
I cannot work any more,
So carry me back to Old Virginny,
To Old Virginny's shore.

Chorus:
Den carry me back to Old Virginny,
To Old Virginny's shore,
Oh, carry me back to Old Virginny,
To Old Virginny's shore.

If I was only young again,
I'd lead a different life;
I'd save my money and buy a farm
And take Dinah for my wife,
But now old age he holds me tight,
My limbs dey are growing sore;
So take me back to Old Virginny,
To Old Virginny's shore.

And when I'm dead and gone
Place this old banjo by my side;
Let the 'possum and coon to my funeral go,
For dey was always my pride,
And den in soft repose I'll sleep,
And dream foreber more
Dat you've carried me back to Old Virginny
To Old Virginny's shore.

Very little is needed to remove the dialect if you wish to do so, then the song could apply to anyone. I can see it being played for comedy, with gestures and the expiration of the singer.

"As arranged and sung by E. P. Christy of Christy's Minstrels," 1847, sheet music, in the Levy Collection. The tune is good, but the lyrics are banal. The tune is not the same as that in James Bland's 1878 sheet music of his well-known "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," but there are a few similarities.
Old Virginny 1847

The James Bland composition also is missing from the DT, but it is so well-known that I doubt anyone would look for it.

Subject: Lyr Add: CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINNY
From: masato sakurai
Date: 07 May 03 - 06:00 AM

Two of the earliest editions (not the first, but very probably the same except for the covers) are at Levy (click here) and American Memory (click here).

          CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINNY
          Words and Music by James Bland
          Copyright, 1878, J. F. Perry & Co.

1. Carry me back to old Virginny,
    There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
    There's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
    There's where the old darkey's* heart am long'd to go,
    There's where I labored so hard for old massa,
    Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
    No place on earth do I love more sincerely
    Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.

          CHORUS:
          Carry me back to old Virginny,
          There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
          There's where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
          There's where the old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

2. Carry me back to old Virginny,
    There let me live 'till I whither and decay,
    Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered,
    There's where this old darkey's* life will pass away.
    Massa and missis have long gone before me,
    Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
    There we'll be happy and free from all sorrow,
    There's where we'll meet and we'll never part no more.

    * written darke'ys in the text

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: masato sakurai
Date: 07 May 03 - 09:12 AM

The Virtual Gramophone site has 4 historical recordings (1903-1920).

Subject: RE: Help: History of Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 May 03 - 12:22 PM

Brings to mind the late (I assume) Don Frye, blues pianist and accompinist for Bertha "Chippie" Hill back in the early 1950s. Over a beer, he mused.."Carry me back to old Virginny? Shit man, you'd have to drag me back.."