The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1909-08-27
Real Songs Of the suwanee River.

Real Songs Of the suwanee River,
! To sit in gorgeous box at some
] splendid theatre. amid a scene of life
and brilliant filter and hear the mar
yelous voice Of Patti ripple away on the
melody Of Way Down Upon De
S'wanee Ribber," is one thing and to
travel through the South until suddenly
with squeak of the locomotive one
looks from the window of a Pullman
car and sees for the first time in all his
life the clear, silent waters of this
stream, is quite different thing. How
many have seen the Suwanee River
through the veil of sentiment and song,
under the environment of the first
named order; and how few, compare
lively, have actually stood upon the
banks OF the river itself, listened to the
soft, low murmur of its meandering wa
tiers, so clear, so beautiful and SO blue
in eddy places, with trees bending over
its bosom, all festooned with long, way
| ing Spanish moss, which so abounds in
the western regions of Florida.
! Way down upon de S'wanee Ribber
Far far away;
Oars whar my heart am turnin ebber,
| Oars whar de old folks stay.
No such ideal picture book songs as
this are ever heard on the Suwanee Riv-
er in real life, unless it be now and then,
when some resident of this section
chooses to hum a few lines of this same
song in spirit much the same as that
of the deacon in church who says
Amen" when the preacherhas finished
the morning prayer-simply agreeing
to what the author of this immortal
song has written.
But there are songs along the SUI
vance River that are characteristic and
unique in all their plaintive melody,
pathos and humor. The negroes who
are found at work along the river, either
on the little boats that haul timber up
and down from the mills or phosphate
from the mines, or out in the lumber
camps and fields along the river banks,
seem to be all given to song. They go
about their work in the morning with
song and sing all the livelong day,
grooming some plaintive air in a monot-
onous fashion or else joining a chorus
where there are several of them, and
making the woods around fairly rever-
berate with the echoes of their camp
meeting hymns, such as this:
Jes' look over yondah what see
Angels bid me to come
See two angels calm at me
Angels bid ME to come.
Rise an shine. mourner,
Rise an shine, mourner,
Rise an shine, mourner,
Fur de angels bid'er me ter come.
How their rich, mellow voices do
melt away in the distance as they join
in this sweet old air, and how the plain
tive strain seems to die away upon the
signing waters of the famed river! And
when they get to the chorus how they
swing around at their work and bear
down on the loud pedal of their voices
and throw a genuine jubilee vigor of
camp-meeting into the song. If they
are cutting logs for the saw mill nigh at
hand, they are apt to swing their axes
in full time with the measure of the
song, and this gives it all the more in
terest and peculiar charm.
One of the lively jig songs" that
are often heard in the lumber and phos-
plate camps along the Suwanee River
runs something like this:
Jaybird in de sugar tree,
Sparrow on de groun
Jaybrd shakes de sugar down,
Sparrow pass hit eroun'.
Shoe, ladies, shoe,
Shoe, ladies', shoe,
Shoe, ladies, shoe, my gal
I'm boun for Sugar Hill
Five cents is my pocket change.
Ten cents is my bill;
If times don git no bettah heah |
I'm boun for Sugar Hill
Etc, etc,
-EX