To my Southerners, did you guys grew up hearing the song "Oh Susannah"?

Well I kind of wonder if it's regional. I mean maybe now that I think about it in kindergarten, but I've noticed different regions have different children's folk songs in Montana. Sounds like one that would be popular in the plains states where the Westward expansion was happening via the railroad.

I bet you also came up with she'll be coming around the mountain too

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

It was also popular in Vermont so definitely not just a plains state thing.

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ZombiePrepper408@reddit

We sang for a forth grade recital about American history

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montana757@reddit

I'm from central Virginia and I'm pretty sure there use to be several major railroads that ran through this area or maybe it's a genetic memory thing, one of my great grandfather's was a railroad man

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Loisgrand6@reddit

Central Valley? You definitely had railroads running through there especially Norfolk and Western later renamed to Norfolk Southern

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montana757@reddit

Lynchburg, central Virginia training school area

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Loisgrand6@reddit

I made a typo. Valley was supposed to be Virginia

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Someshortchick@reddit

It rained all night the day I left!

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Square_Medicine_9171@reddit

the weather it was dry!

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Imightbeafanofthis@reddit

It was so hot I froze to death!

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gmanose@reddit

I’m not a southerner and heard it so often in my youth I can sing it.

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Neb-Nose@reddit

Yeah, same here. I grew up in Pittsburgh, which was also Stephen Foster’s hometown. We were taught that at a very young age and regularly sang his songs in school.

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2PlasticLobsters@reddit

I remember that there's a statue of him outside the Carnegie Museum/Library complex in Oakland. It's not officially spring until someone puts a tulip in his hand.

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Astronaut6735@reddit

Same. I'm pretty sure Bugs Bunny sang it in a cartoon. Half the reason I know songs like that, and classical music, is because cartoons could use them without paying royalties because those old songs aren't copyrighted.

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NateInEC@reddit

100% ... Bugs Bunny classic !

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DarkLordThom@reddit

Add another Northener to the list, and for the same reasons. Those classic Looney Tunes really gave us a wider understanding of our history that modern kids just don't get.

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PaleontologistNo2625@reddit

I'm from NJ and I heard it a lot

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doomgeneration91@reddit

Yes when reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

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Efficient-Panic3506@reddit

Ngl this thread is making me realize half of American folk culture was transmitted through Bugs Bunny reruns and elementary school music class 😭

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sean8877@reddit

Heard it growing up in the northeast

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Reaganson@reddit

Just on Cowboy movies.

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UnicornHandstands@reddit

I’m not from the south but I grew up hearing it a lot.

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Inspi@reddit

Knowing it, hearing it, singing it, playing it.

Still whistle a part of it as a unique call for my dogs.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Not a southerner but I can sing it.

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voteblue18@reddit

I’m a New Yorker and was familiar with that song as a child. Also the I Wish I Was in Dixie song which is wild that was a song that was sung to me.

They were just part of the kids’ song “catalog” in the 80s I guess.

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Dramatic-Blueberry98@reddit

Yup, a little bit

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Technical-Bath9108@reddit

Yep

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Mountain-Lychee4359@reddit

I did, in Idaho. My parents love it....

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Roam1985@reddit

We sing this one in the north too.

It's a folk song.

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Few-Wrongdoer-5296@reddit

Not a southerner so feel free to disregard, but in California we sang it all the time!

I come from Alabama with my washboard on my knee

I'm goin' to Californ-I-Ay, the gold dust for to see

It rained all night the day I left

The weather it was dry

The sun so hot, I froze to death

Susannah, don't you cry.

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Square_Medicine_9171@reddit

washboard? banjo

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Few-Wrongdoer-5296@reddit

Regional variation of the lyrics.

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FLHobbit@reddit

Yes. We sang it in music class. Edited to add that I was in elementary school on the early ‘70s. I’m surprised by the number of people who said they didn’t know it. I wonder if they are younger people?

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ReferenceCreative510@reddit

Early 2000s here. Learned plenty of other folk songs in addition to that like “My Darling Clementine,” “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and the cleaned-up version of “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” among others I've likely forgotten.

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creekcamo@reddit

Grew up in central Ky in the 90s. This, Oh My Darling Clementine, and She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain were taught every single fucking year of elementary school

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ReferenceCreative510@reddit

From MD, can confirm.

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FoggyGoodwin@reddit

Pretty sure Mom sang me to sleep with this one, among others. DK why she knew these old songs (Tree in the Wood, Hole in the Bottom of the Sea), but they were fun opportunities to train memory. Grew up in N East

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PansyOHara@reddit

The composer of Oh, Susannah was Stephen Foster, who also composed My Old Kentucky Home, Swanee River (Old Folks at Home), Camptown Races, Beautiful Dreamer, and many others. Foster is believed to have visited a relative in my Kentucky town, and a musical dramatization of his life has been performed here every summer since 1959 (except for 2020). So yes, I grew up hearing Oh, Susannah—as someone else commented, not on the radio. But my parents sang it at home and taught us, along with some of Foster’s other songs.

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pooteenn@reddit (OP)

It always facisntes me how 80% of Stephen Fosters songs are about the South, even though he spent the majority of his life in the north, living in Pittsburg (mostly), NY, and Cincitattie. It looks like Europeans aren't the only ones romanticizing the US South, even Americans themselves are.

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PansyOHara@reddit

It was fascinating to me that the music of Stephen Foster has been super popular in Japan. 25 or so years ago, a troupe of performers from the Stephen Foster Story did a tour in Japan in which they performed many of his songs.

At the time Foster lived, traveling minstrel shows were a hugely popular form of entertainment. E.P. Christy was probably the biggest name in the field. He apparently heard one of Foster’s songs (Swanee River) and bought the rights to it. As with many other artists, Stephen Foster was no businessman, and was taken advantage of by Christy. Christy also wanted the song to have a happy, rollicking beat, while Foster intended it and wrote it, to be mournful.

While I won’t say that Foster was an abolitionist—he wasn’t politically active—I don’t think there’s evidence that he intentionally “romanticized the Old South.” But in order to earn a living and support his wife and child, he did write songs that fit into the popular entertainment milieu of his time, selling them to E.P. Christy and others.

Later he moved to New York, away from his natural support system of family and friends. He drank excessively, his wife left him, he struggled to write, and died alone in the city, at only 37 years old.

A pretty thorough Wikipedia article with a number of references can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Foster

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WidderWillZie@reddit

For fun, I just want to make sure that anyone who is enjoying this thread also knows about the song 'The Ghost of Stephen Foster' by The Squirrel Nut Zippers. Worth a listen.

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bloobityblu@reddit

LOVE the Squirrel nut zippers!

Will check it out!

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GlobalTapeHead@reddit

Yes. But I haven’t heard it in 40 years.

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Wastedgent@reddit

Only on television.

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Prestigious-Fan3122@reddit

My dad got a job transferred, which he negotiated not to have to take place until I completed sixth grade. It moved us to Mississippi. However, once we got there, School was still in session.

My parents were of the opinion that the school was in session, my butt was going to be in the classroom.

I can vaguely remember seeing a song that included the lyrics "gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton, gonna jump down, turn around, pick a bale a day. Oh Lawdy, pick a bale of cotton, oh Lawdy pick a bale day."

I think I remember oh Susanna, and she'll be coming around the mountain. Oh, and there was some song that went on about something like I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away Dixieland.

Elvis Presley was a little bit before my time, and my parents didn't listen to him because they were too busy listening to Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, etc.

I remember all the kids at school being upset when Elvis Presley died, and I had no idea really who he was.

But later in life, I vaguely remember some retrospective of Elvis in which they played a snippet of him singing one of those Dixie songs I had learned when we first move south.

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Square_Medicine_9171@reddit

omg, I leaned the “pick a bale of cotton” song too. Had absolutely no context for it as a young child

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Square_Medicine_9171@reddit

and i just looked it up— I always thought it was “ pick a bale of cotton; pick a bale of hay” but it is actually “pick a bale a day”

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JimBeam823@reddit

Yes, but it was because of Bugs Bunny.

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ProfessionQuick3461@reddit

I grew up in Southern California and I heard the song growing up. It's not a Southern thing.

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FloatyghostJM1@reddit

I’m from Alabama, so absolutely! My grandma (who is from Indiana) used to sing it to me all the time when I would visit, replacing “Louisiana” with “Indiana” and “my true love” with “my kinfolk.”

I even took banjo lessons for a bit.

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MycologistLower5247@reddit

Not, like, on the radio, but it was on a cassette tape of kid songs that we had. I think we may have sung it in music class when I was in elementary school.

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OddDragonfruit7993@reddit

All the goddamned time in music class. And fucking Dixie, too.

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Square_Medicine_9171@reddit

We skipped Dixie, fortunately

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NoGuarantee3961@reddit

Pretty sure much of the US grew up with that song, at least through the 80's.

I tend to think about mixing things up, and I come from Alabama with a baño on my knee....

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joe-barton74@reddit

Oh who?

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Successful-Safety858@reddit

A very popular American folk song. I’m a music teacher though and even though it’s still in a lot of the books I don’t teach it anymore because it was created as a part of a minstrel show mocking black people.

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shammy_dammy@reddit

Yes. But it's not just a Southern thing...

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BoringPrinciple2542@reddit

Considering it’s best known for its association with the California Gold Rush & written by a Pennsylvanian for blackface minstrel shows…

The only connection to the South is the songwriter making allusions to a place he had never been.

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NoKing9900@reddit

From NJ, definitely learned and sang it in grade school

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TillikumWasFramed@reddit

Yes. Except I only moved to the South as an adult, I grew up in California hearing it.

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West-Improvement2449@reddit

This isnt just a southern thing.

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reddock4490@reddit

I’m from Alabama, and I knew more than a few millennial hipsters who got banjos tattooed on their knees…

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MantisToboganPilotMD@reddit

I'm from NY and can play it on a harmonica.

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HeidiDover@reddit

We sang it in music class. Also, we sang songs like "Dixie," "Suwanee River," and pretty much anything written by Stephen Foster. I am from Florida.

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Remarkable_Table_279@reddit

Yes. Because I’m old…not because I’m a southerner

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Remarkable_Table_279@reddit

Someone posted the lyrics below…and I realized. I don’t recognize them…so maybe I didn’t hear the whole song or not very often

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holymacaroley@reddit

Yes

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ZaphodG@reddit

Oh Susannah is the last track on the first side of the 1970 James Taylor album Sweet Baby James. Rolling Stone has it as #104 on the greatest albums of all time. James Taylor was born in Boston. He lives in Lenox, Massachusetts and owns 175 acres on Martha’s Vineyard.

His family moved to North Carolina so he had some years there when he was young. He went to Milton Academy south of Boston and spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard.

I’m from Massachusetts. I had exposure Steven Foster folk music in elementary school. Steven Foster is from Pennsylvania, not the South. He never lived in the South.

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