Stephen Collins Foster war zu seiner Zeit der bekannteste Songwriter der USA. Viele seiner Lieder – darunter Oh! Susanna, Camptown Races, Swanee River und Beautiful Dreamer – sind über 150 Jahre nach Fosters Tod immer noch bekannt und verbleiben fester Bestandteil der amerikanischen Kultur. 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).
Kontext: 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
