OH! SUSANNA
The long winter evenings of fire-light and music
had come again. Pa's fidle wailed while Pa was
singing: 'Oh, Susi-an-na, don't you cry for
me'.... -- Little House in the Big
Woods, Chapter 13, "The Deer in the Wood"
She sat down beside Pa at the fire, and Pa took
his fiddle out of its box and began to play. 'Oh,
Susanna, don't you cry for me,' the fiddle wailed,
and Pa began to sing... -- Little House on
the Prairie, Chapter 26, "Going Out"
He played 'Dixie Land,' and 'We'll Rally Round
the Flag, Boys!' He played 'All the Blue Bonnets
Are Over the Border,' and 'Oh, Susanna, don't you
cry for me!" -- On the Banks of Plum Creek,
Chapter 26, "Grasshopper Eggs"
"Oh! Susanna" was one of the earliest songs written by Stephen Foster (perhaps prior to 1845); it was performed in public for the first time in 1847 and was first copyrighted in 1848 by C. Holt, Jr. in New York. Before being recognized as a song-writer, Foster gave copies of his songs to both publishers and minstrel singers, and copyright laws at the time allowed whoever was in possession of the music to copyright it in their name. While publishers made thousands of dollars selling 25-cent copies of "Oh! Susanna," publisher William C. Peters did pay Stephen Foster $100 for it. At the time, this amount "delighted" Foster, for it started him on his career path as a paid song-writer.
From the first, "Oh! Susanna" was a hit; it was sung by almost every minstrel group and became the "anthem" of the gold-seeking forty-niners on their way to California. There were many variations in both music and lyrics, as shown by those sung by Charles Ingalls in three separate "Little House"® books.
Stephen Foster Collins (1826-1864) was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh. A musically gifted child, Stephen was educated in the private schools of Pennsylvania and worked as a bookkeeper for a steamship company in Cincinnati as a young adult. It was during this period that Foster made arrangements with several publishers to be paid royalties on future songs, usually 2 cents per copy.
Foster married in 1850 and the couple had one child, a daughter. His honeymoon trip was to New Orleans, the only trip Foster made to the deep south he wrote so much about. In today's music business, Foster would have earned millions from performances and sale of his music, but in the 1850s and 60s, it was a hard way to earn a living. Following an accident in New York in January 1864, Stephen Foster died with only thirty-eight cents in his pocket. His music lives on, in over two hundred songs and instrumentals from a twenty-year period.
Stephen Foster songs mentioned in the "Little House"® books include: "Oh! Susanna," "Uncle Ned," "Nelly Was a Lady," "Oh Boys, Carry Me Along," "De Camptown Races," "Old Folks at Home," and "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night."
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OH! SUSANNA
1. I come from Alabama with my Banjo
on my knee
[chorus] Oh! Susanna, do not cry for me; I come from Alabama, wid my banjo on my knee.
2. I jump'd aboard the telegraph and
trabbled down de ribber,
3. I had a dream de udder night, when
ebry ting was still; De buckwheat cake was in her mouf, de tear was in her eye,
I says I'se coming from de soug;
Susanna, don't you cry
4. [This verse omitted in the original.] Oh! when I gets to New Orleans I'll look all round and round, And when I find Susanna I'll fall right on the ground. But if I do not find her dis darkey'l surely die, And when I'm dead and buried; Susanna, don't you cry. |
OH! SUSANNA (from Little House in the Big Woods)
Oh, Susi-an-na, don't you cry for me, I'm going to Cal-i-for-ni-a, The gold dust for to see.
OH! SUSANNA (from Little House on the Prairie)
I went to California With my wash-pan on my knee, And every time I thought of home, I wished it wasn't me.
OH! SUSANNA (from On the Banks of Plum Creek)
Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me! With my washpan on my knee!
Use the navigation bar above to listen to "Oh! Susanna" - midi sequence by Barry Taylor. If you do not see the midi player above, click HERE to listen.
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