DAVID COOPER RESPONDS TO ‘STATE OF SONG’
The truth is that American exceptionalism is a lie. Moreover, for Kentuckians, the song “My Old Kentucky Home” and the play about its writer, The Stephen Foster Story, in Bardstown are lies, too. On Sunday, October 23 at Kentucky Performing Art, American cellist Ben Sollee, American jazz pianist Harry Pickens, historian and author Emily Bingham, and poet and activist Hannah Drake unpacked the history and legacy of one of the 19th Centuries most popular songs, “My Old Kentucky Home.”
The State of Song program at Kentucky Performing Arts’ Bomhard Theater on October 23, 2022
You may say it’s only a song, but it has become much more than a mere tune; it is the official song for the state of Kentucky and on the first day in May it is played before the running of the Kentucky Derby. As Harry Pickens and Ben Sollee demonstrated by playing it, the song has a pleasing melody. And for some it conjures up images of contented slaves, verandas where southern belles and Kentucky colonels gathered to sip cold mint juleps in the shade of cypress tree.
At a time when Confederate memorials are being removed from public spaces such as Jefferson Davis from the state capitol and the one commemorating Kentuckians who served the Confederacy near the University of Louisville, the official state song for Kentucky is a song rooted in nostalgia for slavery and one with offensive language in its original version. Here are the words from the original song:
The sun shines bright in
The old Kentucky Home,
‘Tis summer, the darkies
Are gay*
In earlier times “gay” meant happy. This song conjures the myth of the happy slaves, who after working in the hot sun for twelve to sixteen hours found time and energy to sing and dance to entertain kindly, Old Master. However, narratives written by actual slaves such as the great Frederick Douglass, Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs tell a far different story. The Old South of the Plantation Tradition was more a creation of Joel Chandler Harris and other post-Civil War authors.
In her well-researched, well-written book My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song, Emily Bingham reveals and unpacks a myth at best and at worst, a decades old lie. First of all, Stephen Foster was from Pittsburgh not Kentucky. Second, he only made a brief visit to Kentucky and The Stephen Foster Story production in Bardstown was a marketing tool used to attract tourists to areas of Kentucky outside of Louisville. And finally, and most importantly, the song is tainted by the racism of minstrel shows.
Scene from “The Stephen Foster Story” in Bardstown, KY courtesy of their Instagram
As pianist Harry Pickens pointed out, the song is not part of Kentucky’s heritage or culture, yet it remains our state song. It opens the Kentucky Derby every year as some maudlin visitors and native Kentuckians cry real tears while it is sung. At the same time, some Kentuckians refuse to sing this paean to slavery and the “good ole days” that were not good to the people picking the tobacco and gathering the hemp. To some Black Kentuckians, it is as insulting as the Confederate flag.
So, where do we go from here? Ben Solee, Hannah Drake, Emily Bingham, and Harry Pickens all agree that the Bluegrass state needs a new song. One that is more inclusive and one that is bereft of the baggage of our racist past. Our state has the talent to write a new song, but do our leaders have the will?
“Let Old Times Be Forgotten” as we move away and look away from Dixieland. For as the late Toni Morrison wrote: “Sweet Home was never sweet, and it was never home for us” (Beloved).
