Time to ditch "Swanee River," or just reroute it?
UPDATE: Take a look at my colleague Gregory Lewis' post on what to do with "Swanee River." There is a difference between his recommendation and mine, but I think it's matter of emphasis. I may be envisioning a slower ride into the sunset than Lewis is for Florida's out-of-date official song.
Here's an AP story about Florida's conflicted relationship with the official state song: Stephen Foster's slave-era pastoral, Swanee River (1851), which Gov. Charlie Crist declined to have played at his inauguration.
After spending more than a year trying to come up with a new song to replace the Stephen Foster classic Swanee River — with lyrics some found racist — Florida politicians are expected to keep the song but update its lyrics. That is, if they do anything at all.The song, also known as Old Folks at Home, would remain the state's official song. As a compromise, a song chosen in a statewide contest, Florida — Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky, would be added as the state's anthem.
"I'd be thrilled and honored," said Jan Hinton, the Pompano Beach music teacher who wrote the winning song.
The original lyric, with Foster's approximation of 19th Century negro dialect, is not something to be sung at public, celebratory functions such as inaugurals. And, indeed, it already undergoes a lot of cleanup when it's been sung in recent years at state functions, although I respect Crist's decision to pass on it in any form.
The interesting thing is, Swanee River gradually shed its caricatured vocal style, if not its dated, inappropriate sentiments. It's actually evolved some with public mores, and you can hear those changes in versions recorded by black and white performers alike. On Rhapsody, I found dozens of interpretations, vocal and instrumental - by Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong, Big Bill Broonzy and many many others. A version by the Ink Spots that I listened to today (from a Voice Masters reissue series put out in 2005) is so beautiful I want to put it on a mix tape.
The lyric, as sung nowadays, is in straightforward, un-idiomatic English, and yes, it's still capable of inducing cringes insofar as it speaks of "longing for the old plantation" - remember, as first written, this was a white guy, Foster, imagining a black person pining for the place of his servitude.
Rewriting the lyric altogether is supposed to wipe away any last echo of nostalgia for the old peculiar institution. A Floridian quoted in the AP story said that to drop Swanee River altogether would be "excessive."
It would be OK by me to keep Swanee in its present, 21st Century form, with no further alteration, as a kind of state song emeritus, not to be played - or at least not sung - at swearings-in and the like. Let Hinton's winning entry inherit the public role. Have Swanee remain available in Florida as a period piece - a reflection of another time - and a teaching tool. Don't disown it because of its unfortunate past, any more than you'd drop Huckleberry Finn from school cirricula because of Mark Twain's use of black dialect. Just give it another, more discreet job.
If someone has a different idea on what to do with Swanee River, I'd like to hear it.
