Old Folks At Home Meaning

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“Old Folks at Home,” by Stephen Foster is a happy tune sung by a sad slave. He is singing about his good old days back when he was a child on a slave plantation in the south. During the mid nineteenth-century this song was sung by a white man wearing black makeup in a show that was known to mock black people. This dense mix of contradictory sounds, music, language and messages and also its assault on social norms illicited a plethora of reactions. This reaction is amplified once the listener knows what the meaning of the song really is and what the author’s intentions really were. “Old Folks at Home’s” joyful tones and ironic lyrics are alluring and offensive at the same time. Seemingly happy but, also deeply haunting, “Old Folks at Home,” …show more content…
It is accompanied by a joyful melody and an upbeat tone. It sounds like a song about the happy sentiments of a man missing his childhood home. It is actually a song about a slave missing childhood life which he remembers fondly. It is written in the dialect of a mid-nineteenth century Southern United State’s slave. The song elicited a variety of responses. Some of them where not very positive. Many believed it was inappropriate and made a mockery of black people. It was uncomfortable to think that a slave could possibly enjoy his life being a slave. A slave’s life could not possibly be happy. Generally accepted, the slave’s life was full of sadness, toil and hardship. Yet, the song does not describe it this way.The song was written in 1851 prior to the beginning of the Civil War while the filth of slavery was about to start a war among ideals. This song stirred many feelings and made many people feel uneasy. Slavery was a very controversial subject at that time. The air of irony expands once you realize the song was “performed in minstrel shows by white performers in blackface and sung in Foster’s approximation of southern slave dialect, and seeming to justify all the “happy days” the singer has spent on “de old plantation.” (Civilwarfolkmusic.com) By knowing the song was written by an abolishilist and slave sympathizer the listener realizes it actually is a very sad song expressing joylessness and fear. Foster in no way is justifying nor promoting slavery. In contrast, he is throwing a swift blow at it’s morality right where it hurts, in the head. It’s ironically cheery feel and with it’s dreary sentiments of a tired soul moving from one joyous hell to a new one is filled with an dread and hopelessness. He sings, “All de world am sad and dreary,” (Foster) as he sadly moves forward into the unknown bleakness of new unknown hardships. Yet, the music is
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