A Flair for the Dramatic - Baptism
He gazes into the eyes of the disenfranchised

Remembering Stephen Foster

Stephen_Foster

I am making this Stephen Foster Memorial Day to commemorate the day he died in 1864. What sad and beautiful songs he wrote.

Foster died tragically from accident, suicide, or some other trauma that left him bleeding from the neck at the age of 37. None can know what he would have become or how he would have evolved. 

What he was was a poet and a musician who left a large body of heartfelt  mournful and joyful music.

Was he an abolitionist? No one knows. Was he a critic of society? Not as it would seem. Was he a reformer? Not yet, yet, yet was yet to be.

He was an observer and interpreter of the hearts, lives, experiences, and emotions of people.

That was a great contribution in and of itself.

Foster taught my soul to mourn and celebrate at the same time.

Things are as they are and to know that is to both grieve and to rejoice.

Sad, that he died so early. Glad, that he left so much of himself with us.

image from upload.wikimedia.org

Notable works

"Beautiful Dreamer"
"Camptown Races"
"Hard Times Come Again No More"
"My Old Kentucky Home"
"Oh! Susanna"
"Old Black Joe"
"Old Folks at Home
among others...

More songs

More at https://pastortomsims.blogspot.com/2025/01/remembering-stephen-foster.html

Excerpts

I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Borne, like a vapor on the summer air;
I see her tripping where the bright streams play,
Happy as the daisies that dance on her way.
Many were the wild notes her merry voice would pour.
Many were the blithe birds that warbled them o'er:
Oh, I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Floating, like a vapor, on the soft summer air.

I long for Jeanie with a day-dawn smile,
Radiant in gladness, warm with winning guile;
I hear her melodies, like joys gone by,
Sighing round my heart over the fond hopes that die:—
Sighing like the night wind and sobbing like the rain,—
Wailing for the lost one that comes not again:
Oh, I long for Jeanie, and my heart bows low,
Never more to find her where the bright waters flow.

I sigh for Jeanie, but her light form strayed
Far from the fond hearts round her native glade;
Her smiles have vanished and her sweet songs flown,
Flitting like the dreams that have cheered us and gone.
Now the nodding wild flowers may wither on the shore
While her gentle fingers will cull them no more:
Oh, I sigh for Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Floating, like a vapor, on the soft summer air.

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Weep no more, my lady, oh! weep no more today!
We will sing one song
For the old Kentucky Home,
For the old Kentucky Home, far away.

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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".

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All up and down de whole creation
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.

Beautiful_Dreamer_music


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