This series looks at the songs Bob Dylan chose to cover in volume “The Philsophy of Modern Song” Links to the previous articles in this series are given at the end. You can find details of our current series and latest posts on the home page of this site.
By Tony Attwood
We’ve got three versions of this song – and since there is no shortage of space here, I am including them all…
As far as I can ascertain, this song dates back to the mid-19th century and was known as a barber-shop song. These songs were performed without instrumentation, but with close four-part harmonies for male voices. The melodies tended to be fairly straightforward and memorable, so the audience could remember them after the performance and sing or hum the lead line, with their fairly straightforward lyrics. The complexity came from the chordal accompaniment provided by the two intermediate voices between the melody and the bass line.
The songs were of course, passed from one quartet to another – the very first (and indeed very primitive) recording of these songs came from around 1860, and of course, it was many years before recordings became generally available. So this song’s creation pre-dates even the most basic of recordings of the first few songs.
The songs of this type were often highly emotional – and this was no exception – these were not songs performed as background music, or songs that everyone would know (this long preceded the days of records and radio stations, of course), and so listeners had less chance to become very familiar with each individual song. They would hear it once, have an understandable emotional reaction and then not hear it again until the next concert.
What this also means is that the melody and lyrics could well change from one performance to another, and most certainly from one city to another, and indeed from one year to another. So we don’t have a clear idea of which is the original version.
These are the lyrics to Stephen C. Foster’s version
Down on de Mississippi floating, Long time I trabble on de way, All night de cottonwood a-toting, Sing for my true lub all de day. Chorus (after each verse): Nelly was a lady, Last night she died, Toll de bell for lubly Nell, My dark Virginny bride. Now I’m unhappy, and I’m weeping, Can’t tote de cottonwood no more; Last night, while Nelly was a-sleeping, Death came a-knockin’ at de door. When I saw my Nelly in de morning, Smile till she open’d up her eyes, Seem’d like de light ob day a-dawning, Jist ’fore de sun begin to rise. Close by de margin ob de water, Whar de lone weeping willow grows, Dar lib’d Virginny’s lubly daughter; Dar she in death may find repose. Down in de meadow, ’mong de clober, Walk wid my Nelly by my side; Now all dem happy days am ober, Farewell, my dark Virginny bride.
Stephen Foster, the composer, was born in 1826 in what is now Pittsburgh, and wrote songs as a sideline from his work as a bookkeeper (basically an administrator of a company’s accounts) in Cincinnati, working for his brother’s shipping company.
As a sideline, in 1849 he created Foster’s Ethiopian Melodies, in which this song was included and which was made famous by the Christy Minstrels. What made the song and its performances unusual is that it was written for and appealed to those who were dissatisfied with the racial bias in society up to this point, which suggested that only white people could appreciate love and family life. As such Dylan saw the song as a major player in the movement to use song as a way of changing people’s views of social structure.
The word “Ethiopian” at the time was a way of suggesting these were the songs of “lesser races” but slowly Foster stopped seeing the “old days” in a sentimental way in which everyone “knew their place” and the songs began to portray people living in the present day, with genuine personalities and emotions interacting with each other. It was a significant step away from the racism that had been a fundamental feature of musical appreciation and understanding up to that point – a view that suggested that Western music was of value, while other music was primitive and of lesser or possibly zero importance.
Thus, although “Nelly was a Lady” was composed in 1849 for a white audience with the prejudices of the day, it did speak to the audience in terms of showing that all people, regardless of race, shared in the basic human emotions. The word “lady” was used for upper-class women at the time, while “Ethiopian” in effect meant non-white, non-American and at the time the use of these words in different context would have been quite surprising, and possibly shocking.
Previously in this series
- Cheaper to Keep Her
- CIA Man – the Fugs
- Detroit City
- Don’t let me be misunderstood
- Dirty Life and Times
- Detroit City
- Dirty Life and Times
- Don’t let me be misunderstood
- I’ve always been crazy
- Keep my Skillet Good and Greasy
- My Generation and Desolation Row
- Old Violin by Johnny Paycheck
- Please don’t let me be misunderstood
- Pump it up
- Saturday night at the movies
- Strangers in the Night
- Take Me from This Garden of Evil
- There stands the glass
- Tutti Fruiti
- Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
- Where or When
- Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me
- Without a song