Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny"
Song

"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" is a song which was written by James A. Bland (1854 – 1911), an African American minstrel who wrote over 700 folk songs. Written in 1878, soon after the American Civil War, when many of the newly freed slaves were struggling to find work, the song has become controversial in modern times.

A slightly reworded version was Virginia's state song from 1940 until 1997, using the word "Virginia" instead of "Virginny". In 1997, it was retired on the grounds that the lyrics were considered offensive to African Americans. On January 28, 1997, the Virginia Senate voted to designate "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia" as state song emeritus, and a study committee initiated a contest for writing a new state song. The Virginia General Assembly suspended the contest on January 5, 2000, and recently reinstated it. There are currently eight candidates.

In January 2006, a state Senate panel voted to designate "Shenandoah" as the "interim official state song". On March 1, 2006, the House Rules Committee of the General Assembly voted down bill SB682, which would have made "Shenandoah" the official state song.

Controversy

Bland himself was an educated black man born in Queens, New York, and educated at Howard University. The song however is written from the perspective of a seemingly nostalgic former slave. The controversy over "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" rests on whether or not the song may be intended or interpreted ironically. The ex-slave describes his slavery and his owners in picturesque and ostensibly positive terms.

Defenders of the song argue that this interpretation is too literal and that "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" articulates and perhaps satirizes the feelings of betrayal and abandonment white Southerners felt after Emancipation. Like minstrel music of the same era, the song was written in dialect, from a black point of view, and expressed the feelings some whites wished blacks to feel; in this case, nostalgia for days of slavery. Others argue the song was written to express difficulties and discrimination facing free blacks in the North which perhaps were bitter enough to make slavery an ironically appealing contrast. These defenders argue that minstrel's songs were never written to be taken literally but were sly and humorous. The slightly less explicit "Old Folks at Home", still the state song of Florida with important modifications, carries a similar message.

Covers

Alma Gluck whose 1916 version was the first celebrity recording by a classical musician to sell one million copies

Ray Charles covered "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" on his full covered release "Sings for America".

Frankie Laine recorded this song. It was the other side of the "Mule Train" single.

Virginia O'Brien recorded this song in her trademark deadpan style in a dream sequence for the Martin Block Musical Merry-go-round.

Jerry Lee Lewis also recorded this song in 1963, his final offer at Sun Records. In early 1957 he also recorded Bland's 'Hand Me Down My Walking Cane'.

The Marching Virginians, the civilian marching band of Virginia Tech, performs this song as part of its repertoire, often following the fight song or a big play.

Lyrics (Original version)

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and corn and taters grow.
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

There's where I labored so hard for old Massa,
Day after day in the field of yellow corn;
No place on earth do I love more sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and the corn and taters grow;
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.

Carry me back to old Virginny,
There let me live till I wither and decay.
Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered,
There's where this old darkey's life will pass away.

Massa and Missis have long since gone before me,
Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore.
There we'll be happy and free from all sorrow,
There's where we'll meet and we'll never part no more.

Carry me back to old Virginny.
There's where the cotton and the corn and taters grow;
There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time.
There's where this old darkey's heart am long'd to go.