19th Century Songs, Including Stephen Foster's Quiz

Answer: Beautiful Dreamer

This was published as the last song Foster wrote before he died in 1864, but a copyright date of 1862 introduces some doubt. The song makes the most of the sentimentality of the period, and was a more respectable "parlor" song than others which were suitable for the stage. Currier & Ives published a colored lithograph with the same title, capitalizing on the song's popularity.

It showed a young women propped in bed, holding a book at her side, her eyes attractively half open, daydreaming.

Answer: Old Uncle Ned

The song was full of words that are offensive to modern ears, but it also contained accurate observation, such as "His fingers were long like de cane in de brake," describing an elderly man's fingers with arthritic knuckles like the joints of the stems in the southern canebreak. Reversing the cliche, master weeps openly: "Massa take it mighty hard, De tears run down like de rain;" while mistress hides her feelings: "Old Missus turn pale and she gets berry sad..." The poem is thick with dialect and cliches, but consistently avoids the outright mockery and funny nonsense of most minstrel songs, mourning old Ned as much as possible within a context that allowed very few serious emotions.

Answer: The Bonnie Blue Flag

Harry McCarthy adapted the tune from "The Irish Jaunting Car," wrote patriotic lyrics about secession in 1861, and it was an immediate hit after he performed it in Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans. The third verse had a few states out of order, based on their secession dates, but nobody seemed to mind, as the song was republished several times without corrections.

The flag in the title, newly symbolizing secession, was solid blue with a large central white star, the same as West Florida had used when it tried to stand alone in 1810.

It was also the same basic design as Texas had used when it was a republic, though Texas's Burnett flag had a gold star.

Answer: All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight

Ethyl Lynn Beers published a poem, "The Picket Guard," in the fall of 1861, but it was set to music by J. H. Hewitt and published as a song in 1863. Lamar Fontaine was listed as the lyricist on the sheet music, but modern scholars believe Beers has a stronger claim, though there's controversy.

The song is about the contrast between a typical newspaper announcement about the war overall, saying there were no battles along the Potomac River near Washington, overlooking lesser action: "a stray picket / Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro," or in other words, a lone private on guard duty is shot by a hidden enemy soldier across the river.

The song describes his death but points out the obvious fact that to him and his loved ones, the Potomac was not at all quiet that night, even though it might be officially quiet.

Answer: Home, Sweet Home!

John Howard Payne wrote the words and Sir Henry Bishop wrote the music for this song, circa 1823, for the opera "Clari, or the Maid of Milan." The song soared, languished, then soared again just before and during the American Civil War, when thousands of young men were far from their homes and families, maybe for the first time.

The underlying meaning--being far from home and wishing you were there--was so universal that it's hard to say whether Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" was copying "There's no place like home," or simply reminding everyone of it.

Answer: Old Folks at Home

Foster liked the musical fit of "Suwannee," spelled as "Swanee." He had already rejected Yazoo and Pee Dee, when his brother called out the name from an Atlas. E P. Christy paid Foster to be named as author on the sheet music, though Foster later regretted it.

The song is about a slave "longing for de old plantation," though it's not clear whether he wants to visit the actual plantation itself, or if he wants his childhood back so he could be "playing wid my brudder" or see his mother again--things which could never happen, but are familiar to any adult recalling his lost childhood. Like all typical minstrel songs, it's written in dialect, and that combined with a slave saying he missed a plantation made modern people cringe. Florida altered the words and added an additional state song to choose from.

Many singers follow suit, even if not officially singing the song in Florida, removing dialect to avoid tedious explanations or justifications.

Answer: Old Dan Tucker

"Get out de way! Old Dan Tucker.
You're too late to come to supper."

The catchy tune and nonsense story that allowed endless additions made the song instantly popular. First published in 1843, it's often attributed to Dan Emmett or listed anonymously as a folk song. Aside from pure entertainment, the song was adapted for political candidates: Henry Clay, John Fremont, Abraham Lincoln... The Hutchinson family of antislavery singers even had an emancipation version.

Answer: Virginny

When people think of "Carry me Back to Old Virginny" today, they're almost always thinking of the 1878 version by James Bland that was Virginia's state song for a while. An older version, probably from the 1840s, had a different tune and the chorus:

Den carry me back to ole Virginny
To ole Virginny shore,
Oh, carry me back to ole Virginny,
To ole Virginny shore.

When Confederate soldiers were retreating from Maryland back to Virginia after the Battle of Antietam, one will sometimes read in history books that they sang, ironically, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny." It's probably true, but it would have been the older song, not the one that usually pops in our heads.

Answer: Turkey in the Straw

The tune probably goes back to at least the 1820s or 1830s in America and has countless different lyrics, usually including the title plus "turkey in the hay," then maybe mentioning fiddle playing or dancing. There are completely different lyrics to the same tune about "old zip coon" that sometimes stand separately or get intermixed, and have numerous authors who claimed to have written them.

At this point, it's impossible to sort out for sure. The jaunty tune and its many different words belong to everybody.

Answer: Kingdom Coming (Year ob Jubilo)

The title refers to the Biblical "year of jubilee" from Leviticus 25:8-13, which some scholars say meant that every 49 or 50 years, slaves were set free, among many other changes. The song starts out with southern slaves making fun of the overweight master fleeing the Lincoln gunboats visible on the river.

They lock up the overseer and enjoy all the luxuries of the plantation, taking charge and concluding by saying the master should be punished because he was "ole enough, big enough, ought to known better dan to went an' run away." It's a clever pro-Union song, written in dialect but skewering slave owners who were losing and soon would have their slaves' freedom forced on them. Unfortunately the war didn't work out as cleanly and quickly as the song hoped, but it lifted the spirits of one side at least.