Rouget de Lisle wrote both words and air for the "Marseillaise" and Wagner wrote the librettos as well as the music of his operas, usually air and lyric are written by different persons. Ordinarily a musician like Schubert composes a melody for a poem like Shakespeare's "Hark, Hark, the Lark," or a poet like Mrs. Howe writes words for a well-known melody, as she did in "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." In every case, however, the poem and the air must blend to produce a harmonious whole. There are more perfect melodies and far greater poems than the air and words of Stephen Collins Foster's "Old Folks at Home"; but in few other songs does one find so perfect a harmony between the two. The explanation is that Foster wrote both words and music for his songs. If the reader will read "Old Folks at Home" as a poem, he will find that it is not poetry of a high order; in fact, without the music the words seem colorless and conventional. When sung to the melody, however, they seem suddenly to have become alive, full of unsuspected color and feeling. OLD FOLKS AT HOME Way down upon de Swanee Ribber, Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber, All up and down de whole creation Still longing for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home. Chorus: All de world am sad and dreary, Eberywhere I roam; Oh! darkeys, how my heart grows weary, All round de little farm I wandered Den many happy days I squandered, When I was playing wid my brudder, Oh, take me to my kind old mudder! One little hut among de bushes, Still sadly to my memory rushes, No matter where I rove. When will I see de bees a-humming All round de comb? When will I hear de banjo tumming Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) 26 whole cre - a- tion Sadly I roam, Still longing for de old plan- ta-tion, And for de old folks at It is too much the fashion among musicians to think of the words of a song as comparatively unimportant. No mistake could be greater; for, as Shakespeare has put it, "Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews." Without the words the air would seem to most of us unsatisfying and pointless. The poem not only gives us the key to the emotion which the music arouses; it also emphasizes it in every possible way. The theme of "Old Folks at Home" is the wanderer's longing for home and home folks. Every line of the poem calls up appropriate pictures of the darkey's home and relatives. Our emotions are attached to persons and things, and it is the part of the poet to picture them while the musician stirs our feelings. Foster's song illustrates perfectly one of Irving Berlin's eight rules for writing popular songs: "The title, which must be simple and easily remembered, must be 'planted' |