I visited Lexington Kentucky 2 weeks ago! As a Irish person I must say it’s a beautiful place! My son is now living there and I will be a frequent visitor!
I'm from the mountains of eastern Kentucky, where so many Irish settled and so many old Irish traditions live on in one way or another. I've always wanted to have a visitor from Ireland, to show them the history and culture that are rarely broadcasted to the world. I believe it would be truly fascinating for any modern Irishman.
I used to live in Kentucky, from New Jersey originally. Its crazy it's looks very similar to Ireland especially the bluegrass region. My brothers friend who was an Irish jockey said the same thing, he went to ferrier school there
@@johnspinelli9396 What part of Kentucky, I’d assume central Kentucky? Because the state changes drastically from west-central where it’s mostly flat, to the eastern part of the state when you get to the mountains.
I played this song sitting with Daddy when he was dying and he was patting his feet as it played. He knew I would do all I could to get him back to Kentucky to lay beside his brothers once the time came. It has been 6 months now and it still hurts just as it did when he left me. As the tears ran down my face as I held his as he drew his last breath I sang this part to him in his ear, for my ole Kentucky home, for my ole Kentucky home far away... I will see him again I am sure ❤️
What an excellent choice. On the other side of life I play this for my newborn baby girl late at night while her momma is asleep. I like to think of this song as the harmony used to bridge this world and that. Timeless and beautiful
We played this song for my father when he was dying in hospice. Dad used to sing a few lines of this song to us kids. He was an Kentucky boy from Uniontown KY.
My dad was born and raised in KY. Has lived in California for 71 years now. Each year that he had a horse in the Derby, I'd watch tears fill his eyes when they played this song as the horses left the paddock.
Laura McAnally there’s absolutely nothing in the world like being a Kentuckian, at the track that first Saturday in May, singing My Old Kentucky home and cheering those horses around the track.
My mother was from Louisville. My sibs and I cry over this song every time it plays. We gather over text from all over the country while the Derby is running and cry over missing her spirit so much. Thank you John Prine for such a beautiful rendition.
Dear John, you have 2 little girls here in Australia aged 3 and 5 who are doing a dance for you to make you feel better while you battle covid 19. You’re a treasure, not only in America, but the world!
I am from Tennessee but my mother's side is from south Kentucky. Every time I visit, it has a powerful emotion of a mixture of blissful and excitement. Love Kentucky ❤️
My very favorite rendition of this song! He’s got the accent down just right. I’ve lived in Kentucky my whole life, born and raised and this never ceases to bring a tear to my eyes.
I’m reading a romance novel and they mentioned this song so I had to see. Reading the comments and listening to the song I’m gonna cry, it’s all so beautiful and I’m glad I stumbled upon it
RIP John Prine I only discovered your music over the last few years. My Father introduced me to your songs. He said he listened to you while he was serving in Vietnam. Sam Stone is his favorite song of yours. You were scheduled to play in Kentucky in May 2020, but the cancer and the covid took you from us. I would have loved to have taken my Father to show as he is 'getting on' due to his Parkinson's. God Bless You John Prine from an Old Kentucky Boy! Born and Raised in Boone County - Resident of Campbell County.
My grandma was born and raised in Muhlenberg County Kentucky. I've heard stories about Paradise my entire life. Sending my condolences to the Prine family.
Being from Kentucky (oldham county), I’ve listened to our state song millions of times. Hands down best rendition. But didn’t expect less from Mr Prine ❤
This song triggers warm and comforting memories of rolling hills, flowing waters, and luscious trees in Kentucky. And I've never even been to Kentucky.
Is This Rain? Come and see us. Many people move here for work, when they’re told they are being transferred again they will quit the job rather than leave. There’s a saying “Heaven must be a Kentucky kind of place.” I think you’d enjoy it. It’s a beautiful place.
Man, hard to believe he’s 3 weeks gone. This damn sickness took John from us and now it’s Derby weekend and it took that, too. We will be through this soon enough and the sun will shine brightly on our old Kentucky Home once again.
Best version, bar none. I am so glad you didn't get all moany-groany with it, like so many do. Straight singing, simple and easy make it more meaningful somehow. Thanks!
We built a little "Old Kentucky Home" in our Mississippi backyard for this girl who gets homesick for the bluegrass. This song will be playing on the porch soon! Thanks, JP.
@@Zalis116 Yes... the longing of someone who had to move his family far away from his home in Kentucky due to economic hardships. Far fewer than half (more like less than 1/4) of southerners ever had a slave... many were dirt poor themselves.
I literally can't help but cry when I hear this song, right now at least. We are so divided here about the most mundane things that are so trivial but still separate us from being the best that we can be. I know people have opinions for different reasons but we can't let this cause us to not love and care for one other. We are Kentuckians, we ALL have common ground and that is always something I have loved and cherished being raised in the beautiful state. We should look toward being more compassionate, understanding, and tolerant. Because I believe in all of us, from Ashland to Louisville, lets treat each other with some fucking respect again.
My grandfather on my father's side was from Guthrie, KY. He'd come out to L.A., where he and Grandma lived a couple miles from us in Glendale while I was growing up. I remember how he liked his cantaloupe underripe--with salt on it.
I remember seeing you in my first concert on your all dogs to heaven tour with ZZZ top I find it funny now that I'm a refuge in Washington missing my home finding this song by you that speaks a huge memory with my mother thank you!!!
This song goes off in my head pretty often as I prepare for the Kentucky Derby & this year's winner "Country Home" really put a smile on my face. The fact he was such a long shot was the cherry on top, an underdog win is always a sweet one any way they happen to come about. Americana music & it's artist are a lot of long shots at least in my mind.
Lived in Florida now for about 5 years, never expected to stay more than a year or 2, but you know how it goes.. I’ve completely adjusted to living here, I now have obligations here I can’t up & abandon, and I do like living less than a mile from the water...I’m a Floridian now, but Kentucky will always be home. And every now & then, damn I sure miss my old Kentucky home! :/
Beautiful & my favorite version of this song. Here it is, supposed to be the running of the 146th Kentucky Derby, instead it is a quite & sad feeling here in the state due quarantine. 2019 was the very first disqualification at the Derby & this year, it was the very first postponement of the Derby. Extra sad because it’s also such a beautiful day too. Since past Derby’s have been rainy.
@@thedailycomplaining4861 That may be the most ridiculous, obscure, and inappropriate comment I've seen in quite some time. Just curious, were you drinking heavily or on hallucinogens when you wrote that comment?
Rest In Peace John Prine. From Tennessee. MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song By Emily Bingham It is an old, old song, written in a discredited age and made infamous in blackface, but every spring it rises from the bluegrass and bad hats and bourbon fog, and the people of the Commonwealth sing it alive again. As the beautiful racehorses stomp and shy toward the starting gate, a marching band sounds across the storied turf of Churchill Downs and 150,000 rise to sing a song about a slave torn from his wife and children and sold downriver to Louisiana, into an even deeper hell. And they begin to weep, a lot of them, not because of the evils of chattel slavery, but because that old song, its lyrics and very meaning altered and whitewashed over time, is such a part of their sense of place, of home, that they hear something else. People who love the song say there is, in that moment, a kind of serenity, a sweet longing for something lost over the passing years, even if they cannot put into words what that something is. How this came to be, how the song so captured these people and a wider world, is the haunting question that the native Kentuckian Emily Bingham answers so thoroughly and forcefully in “My Old Kentucky Home,” her history of an American song. It tries to explain how Stephen Foster’s iconic work, one that paints chattel slavery as wistful, warm and deeply lamented, could become the anthem of a place, sung with the reverence of a hymn. But this book is more than just a kind of archaeological deep dig; it attempts a reckoning, a kind that many Southerners, especially, will recognize and understand, because they have long been searching for something like it themselves. For many Kentuckians, the song would become part of their very hearts. Changing times forced alterations in its lyrics, but removing the offensive words did not change its genesis. It was published in 1853, belying a popular myth that its lyrics are about homesick troops in the Civil War. It was inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the story of a slave ripped from his family in Kentucky and sold south, where he is eventually whipped to death. But Foster would paint slavery as sentimental; it was the kind of thing Americans would sing in their parlors. “The time has come when the darkies have to part, / Then my old Kentucky home, good night!” Wildly popular, it would be performed by white men in blackface in crowded halls in New York and minstrel shows as far away as Tokyo Bay. It was sung by Bing Crosby and Bugs Bunny and John Prine, and in black-and-white movies, the kind where Shirley Temple tapped across the screen hand in hand with an old Black gentleman in servant’s clothes (played by the legendary Bill Robinson). The song is a thing from antiquity, yes, but in 2022, in an America at war with itself, this book seems to arrive just in time. Bingham, in her words, scrubs off some of that burned cork to see what is underneath. For Bingham herself, a Harvard-educated child of white privilege whose ancestors owned slaves, it would present a personal contradiction. She wore the big hats, too, and wept when the song played, but would come to realize the sin was not in loving a song but in failing to understand it. And understanding it, knowing its beginnings and long, tortured journey into a third century of painted-over suffering, she reckoned that it did not belong to her, but to those wounded most by it; they should decide its future. Her book offers its readers the same choice, between understanding and sweet nostalgia, between the splinters and thorns of history and about the worst thing people can do to one another, and a smooth, thin, polished veneer.
You have summed up the book perfectly. Unfortunately I don't believe either the women in the big hats or the men in morning suits will ever want to understand the original lyrics of this song or even care to hear them, particularly the 2nd and 3rd verses.
I love this song I was born in Lexington Kentucky. John Prine was one of my favorite singers I listened to him every night and I wish you the best in heaven John. God bless you. Good night John I wish you the best in heaven.
I'm writing this as I a get home from my grandmothers funeral. Her family goes back 300 years deep in Louisville. She had a fight with parkinson's that actually went longer that Ali's did, that hard ass of a woman. To end the service they played this song. Not this artist. But this song. Was the first time I ever heard this song but in that moment I felt like I knew every word of it. I know I'm just preaching to a youtube comment section. But this is the first song I've ever cried to. I love you Nana. Thank you for everything you've ever done for Colin and I. Words can't describe how much I miss you and miss taking care of you. I love you.
Moved to North Carolina from Kentucky not long ago. There’s a lot more people here and a lot of people seem to look you up and down, but not in your eyes. I sure do miss home.
I was lucky enough to have seen him perform twice at the Everly Brothers home coming in Central city Ky. My brother and I got to meet him and got his autograph. Rest In Peace John, you were one of a kind and you will be missed. He is a National Treasure!!!!
Reminds me of my parents both born and bred in Kentucky! My Daddy used to song this to me as a child... RIP Daddy. I love my Old Kentucky Home when I used to live there too! ❤️🇺🇸❤️
I just found you, My Dear Mr Prine. A long time ago, a friend mentioned you, but I never followed up. Alas! I just discovered you cause you're on the tv Folk Music channel, so I've lived 57 years without you--what a waste my life has been. You and Dickens--who I didn't read until I was 40--how dim my life has been without you! If you come to New Orleans, I will be there, if I have to
John Prine is such an integral part of who I am, his music interwoven with the fabric of my being. We're getting on in our years, but our growin uncertainties about the future are outweighed by our willingness, nooo eagerness!, to enjoy what we can squeeze out of life for not just ourselves but also those we love....some whom we've never even met. May your days be merry John. May your days be merry.
![The Dead South - In Hell I'll Be In Good Company [Official Music Video]](/img/1.gif)
Our best President -- Abraham Lincoln -- was born in Kentucky. A good man! * Cav *
President Jefferson Davis-was also from Kentucky. First time we ever had two candidates from the same state
I visited Lexington Kentucky 2 weeks ago! As a Irish person I must say it’s a beautiful place! My son is now living there and I will be a frequent visitor!
I am born and raised in Western Kentucky, God bless our Irish brothers and sisters🙏
I'm from the mountains of eastern Kentucky, where so many Irish settled and so many old Irish traditions live on in one way or another. I've always wanted to have a visitor from Ireland, to show them the history and culture that are rarely broadcasted to the world. I believe it would be truly fascinating for any modern Irishman.
I used to live in Kentucky, from New Jersey originally. Its crazy it's looks very similar to Ireland especially the bluegrass region. My brothers friend who was an Irish jockey said the same thing, he went to ferrier school there
@@johnspinelli9396 What part of Kentucky, I’d assume central Kentucky? Because the state changes drastically from west-central where it’s mostly flat, to the eastern part of the state when you get to the mountains.
@@charlesbrown4483 yes I was in Lexington and my son is living just 20 minutes outside the city!
I played this song sitting with Daddy when he was dying and he was patting his feet as it played. He knew I would do all I could to get him back to Kentucky to lay beside his brothers once the time came. It has been 6 months now and it still hurts just as it did when he left me. As the tears ran down my face as I held his as he drew his last breath I sang this part to him in his ear, for my ole Kentucky home, for my ole Kentucky home far away... I will see him again I am sure ❤️
Sorry for your loss.
I’m sure he proud of you and may your father rest in peace. 🫶🏻
Соболезную
Very sweet memory. Made me cry
What an excellent choice. On the other side of life I play this for my newborn baby girl late at night while her momma is asleep. I like to think of this song as the harmony used to bridge this world and that. Timeless and beautiful
We played this song for my father when he was dying in hospice. Dad used to sing a few lines of this song to us kids. He was an Kentucky boy from Uniontown KY.
I volunteer at hospice. Hello in there was my song to decompress, cry and try to move on. I am sorry for your loss.
Thank you for sharing. That’s fantastic.
God bless the Greenwells. Good folks.
I know a lot of Greenwells from Union County. Went to school there.
I'm sorry for your loss. 😢
I live in California but was born and raised in Kentucky. All my family is still there, I cry a little when I hear John sing this.
STEPHEN COLLINS Kentucky is great I still live here it’s great
California is trash. Move back here to the great commonwealth.
I did TV work at the track for 20+ years. We'd all get choked up singing this song. It means that much to you when you live here.
My dad was born and raised in KY. Has lived in California for 71 years now. Each year that he had a horse in the Derby, I'd watch tears fill his eyes when they played this song as the horses left the paddock.
Laura McAnally there’s absolutely nothing in the world like being a Kentuckian, at the track that first Saturday in May, singing My Old Kentucky home and cheering those horses around the track.
I'm a puerto rican born and raised in NJ out west to me is Philadelphia this song makes me want to visit Kentucky
Sitting in a dark room listening to Johns songs . Can’t stop crying. Thanks for the music...
I know what you mean.
I know what you mean....Iam a 71 yr old man..never cried so much since we lost JP.
@@jimgriffin8978 hang in there brother! We have the music and so still the man.
I’ve done the same. Thank you for sharing this.
still.
Maybe home isn’t so far away for you now, John. Rest well. You are loved.
Yes, he,s in a better Home. I bet God welcome him with open arms!
Sweet thought and words.
@@phillipbrown7278 It doesn't exist ay God
@@SharonKnight1954 Hello Sharon how are you doing today??
I'm a Westerner. I lived in Kentucky for 5 years for work. I liked it.
My mother was from Louisville. My sibs and I cry over this song every time it plays. We gather over text from all over the country while the Derby is running and cry over missing her spirit so much. Thank you John Prine for such a beautiful rendition.
Goodnight, John, from the Old Kentucky Home.
That hit deep.
Mr. Prine, you made this life more beautiful; I hope you knew how grateful we were.
RIP John Prine. You were a true legend.
Dear John, you have 2 little girls here in Australia aged 3 and 5 who are doing a dance for you to make you feel better while you battle covid 19. You’re a treasure, not only in America, but the world!
I am from Tennessee but my mother's side is from south Kentucky. Every time I visit, it has a powerful emotion of a mixture of blissful and excitement. Love Kentucky ❤️
Love Tennessee and rocky top. From kentucky ❤
My very favorite rendition of this song! He’s got the accent down just right. I’ve lived in Kentucky my whole life, born and raised and this never ceases to bring a tear to my eyes.
I’m reading a romance novel and they mentioned this song so I had to see. Reading the comments and listening to the song I’m gonna cry, it’s all so beautiful and I’m glad I stumbled upon it
I was raised into a Kentucky basketball and football family. I just lost my last uncle. They haled from Harlan County
I’m from just across the border and I bleed orange and white. But when I hear this, it makes Appalachia one home. God bless your uncle bub.
My kin are from Harlan and Letcher counties. I miss home, haven’t seen Kentucky in almost a decade now 😔
Well you know the song, You'll never leave harlan Alive.
RIP John Prine
I only discovered your music over the last few years. My Father introduced me to your songs. He said he listened to you while he was serving in Vietnam. Sam Stone is his favorite song of yours.
You were scheduled to play in Kentucky in May 2020, but the cancer and the covid took you from us. I would have loved to have taken my Father to show as he is 'getting on' due to his Parkinson's.
God Bless You John Prine from an Old Kentucky Boy!
Born and Raised in Boone County - Resident of Campbell County.
Born and raised in KY: This is my favorite version of the State song.
Me too!
A buddy turned me on to this version. I owe him
Me too
Me as well. Western Ky. too. Much family roots in Trigg, Logan, McCracken and Muhlenberg counties all.
me too as well
My grandma was born and raised in Muhlenberg County Kentucky.
I've heard stories about Paradise my entire life.
Sending my condolences to the Prine family.
I live in Henderson County, not too far away.
Being from Kentucky (oldham county), I’ve listened to our state song millions of times. Hands down best rendition. But didn’t expect less from Mr Prine ❤
Goodnight, John. RIP
- KY
John Prine, you are missed already. Most beautiful version of this song. Rest in Peace, and may God be with you and your family.
I’ve lived in Mississippi for almost 30 years and cannot wait to go home to Old Kentucky
This song triggers warm and comforting memories of rolling hills, flowing waters, and luscious trees in Kentucky.
And I've never even been to Kentucky.
Is This Rain? Come and see us. Many people move here for work, when they’re told they are being transferred again they will quit the job rather than leave.
There’s a saying “Heaven must be a Kentucky kind of place.”
I think you’d enjoy it. It’s a beautiful place.
Come visit us sometime! We'd love to have you.
yes yes Ikr ❤️❤️🥰
You're not far off. Beautiful mountains, and flowing waters, with tons of trees.
@@MosiahWhite Yeah, anyones welcome to pull up a seat and chat.
The most beautiful state song of any of them.
When a Kentuckian sings it it’s even better.
Goodnight, John, and thank you for all the music. 😢
Nice profile picture :>
I’ve been in Indiana 22 years but I will be back in My Old Kentucky Home when this pandemic is over
did you manage to come back?
@@greentea9383 yes I am back
God bless and stay true jeff!@jeffreyboyd6402
Make this Kentucky girl cry in Minnesota.
God bless John Prine in heaven.
Man, hard to believe he’s 3 weeks gone. This damn sickness took John from us and now it’s Derby weekend and it took that, too. We will be through this soon enough and the sun will shine brightly on our old Kentucky Home once again.
over 3 years now
The legend that is John Prine----- I salute you.
Best version, bar none. I am so glad you didn't get all moany-groany with it, like so many do. Straight singing, simple and easy make it more meaningful somehow. Thanks!
We built a little "Old Kentucky Home" in our Mississippi backyard for this girl who gets homesick for the bluegrass. This song will be playing on the porch soon! Thanks, JP.
isnt that an old mississippi home lol
I spent my first 7 years of life in Louisville and this song, now that I'm 66, still makes me cry.
Dude is describing a land of paradise. What a magical childhood he must have had..
This song's almost 100 years older than Prine
@@Crushenator500 ...and most notably, originally described something quite the opposite of paradise.
@@Zalis116 Yes... the longing of someone who had to move his family far away from his home in Kentucky due to economic hardships.
Far fewer than half (more like less than 1/4) of southerners ever had a slave... many were dirt poor themselves.
This is an old American song and and has a special place in American culture
The world has lost a true legend- a musical genius- missed by all his Irish fans
Goodnight, John. We'll take it from here.
Aawwww
Yes, we will take it from here, side by side, you are so loved and missed John Prine
We will miss you so much, John. Thank you for being a gift to all of us. All our love from KY.
Stephen Foster, he wrote some lovely songs. this is a great version of O.K.H.
I literally can't help but cry when I hear this song, right now at least. We are so divided here about the most mundane things that are so trivial but still separate us from being the best that we can be. I know people have opinions for different reasons but we can't let this cause us to not love and care for one other. We are Kentuckians, we ALL have common ground and that is always something I have loved and cherished being raised in the beautiful state. We should look toward being more compassionate, understanding, and tolerant. Because I believe in all of us, from Ashland to Louisville, lets treat each other with some fucking respect again.
Oh Lord, the irony! Guess you don't know the origins of the song. (And it's that ignorance that keeps us divided. smdh.)
From Ashland to Hickman, lol
Most of the rap songs should go if my old ky home goes!
We play this song after every road trip when we cross the Kentucky state line. It has become a ritual at this point. It feels good to be home.
I miss you already, John Prine.
so long old friend Kentucky will never forget you.
Beautiful. Good Night Dad
Hello Jessica how are you doing today??
My grandfather on my father's side was from Guthrie, KY. He'd come out to L.A., where he and Grandma lived a couple miles from us in Glendale while I was growing up. I remember how he liked his cantaloupe underripe--with salt on it.
Shout out to the Legend John Prine, all the way from Colorado.
Been all over the United States. Born and raised in Kentucky. I always find myself coming back. No better state in my opinion. Go big blue!
Hang on John Prine Kentucky needs you! The world needs you more!!!
John Prine was from western Kentucky, where I was born, hearing this soothes my soul
I believe he was from Illinois, actually. He had family in Kentucky though.
His ancestors are from Kentucky- he was from Chicago area.
😢 NEVER KNEW THAT,
THANK YOU!!! John Prine's FANTASTIC MUSIC IS A HUGE BLESSING IN MY LIFE! ❤
He definitely had the distinctive Western Kentucky drawl! ❤ listening to John Prine perform is like a visit down home! 🎉❤🎉 🏡
@@trip4923State song of Kentucky number of years ago, before he passed, John Prine would have concerts on weekends 🎉open air and FANTASTIC! BRAVO ❤️
I remember seeing you in my first concert on your all dogs to heaven tour with ZZZ top I find it funny now that I'm a refuge in Washington missing my home finding this song by you that speaks a huge memory with my mother thank you!!!
Home is where your Heart is and My Heart is in Kentucky!
Americana at its best. Thanks JP!
This song goes off in my head pretty often as I prepare for the Kentucky Derby & this year's winner "Country Home" really put a smile on my face. The fact he was such a long shot was the cherry on top, an underdog win is always a sweet one any way they happen to come about. Americana music & it's artist are a lot of long shots at least in my mind.
I once read; "those who say America has no culture, haven't read Mark Twain or listened to John Prine"
Well put...
God Bless John Prine. r.i.p.
Lived in Florida now for about 5 years, never expected to stay more than a year or 2, but you know how it goes.. I’ve completely adjusted to living here, I now have obligations here I can’t up & abandon, and I do like living less than a mile from the water...I’m a Floridian now, but Kentucky will always be home. And every now & then, damn I sure miss my old Kentucky home! :/
Rest In Peace and thanks for all the great music. “We sing one song...”
Beautiful & my favorite version of this song. Here it is, supposed to be the running of the 146th Kentucky Derby, instead it is a quite & sad feeling here in the state due quarantine. 2019 was the very first disqualification at the Derby & this year, it was the very first postponement of the Derby. Extra sad because it’s also such a beautiful day too. Since past Derby’s have been rainy.
John Prine is one national treasure!
Of gayness apparently
@@thedailycomplaining4861 That may be the most ridiculous, obscure, and inappropriate comment I've seen in quite some time. Just curious, were you drinking heavily or on hallucinogens when you wrote that comment?
He’s still with us in his music, truly the voice and poet of our time here, the pure soul of his music transcends all other things
Rest In Peace John Prine. From Tennessee.
MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME
The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song By Emily Bingham
It is an old, old song, written in a discredited age and made infamous in blackface, but every spring it rises from the bluegrass and bad hats and bourbon fog, and the people of the Commonwealth sing it alive again. As the beautiful racehorses stomp and shy toward the starting gate, a marching band sounds across the storied turf of Churchill Downs and 150,000 rise to sing a song about a slave torn from his wife and children and sold downriver to Louisiana, into an even deeper hell. And they begin to weep, a lot of them, not because of the evils of chattel slavery, but because that old song, its lyrics and very meaning altered and whitewashed over time, is such a part of their sense of place, of home, that they hear something else. People who love the song say there is, in that moment, a kind of serenity, a sweet longing for something lost over the passing years, even if they cannot put into words what that something is.
How this came to be, how the song so captured these people and a wider world, is the haunting question that the native Kentuckian Emily Bingham answers so thoroughly and forcefully in “My Old Kentucky Home,” her history of an American song. It tries to explain how Stephen Foster’s iconic work, one that paints chattel slavery as wistful, warm and deeply lamented, could become the anthem of a place, sung with the reverence of a hymn. But this book is more than just a kind of archaeological deep dig; it attempts a reckoning, a kind that many Southerners, especially, will recognize and understand, because they have long been searching for something like it themselves.
For many Kentuckians, the song would become part of their very hearts. Changing times forced alterations in its lyrics, but removing the offensive words did not change its genesis. It was published in 1853, belying a popular myth that its lyrics are about homesick troops in the Civil War. It was inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” the story of a slave ripped from his family in Kentucky and sold south, where he is eventually whipped to death. But Foster would paint slavery as sentimental; it was the kind of thing Americans would sing in their parlors. “The time has come when the darkies have to part, / Then my old Kentucky home, good night!”
Wildly popular, it would be performed by white men in blackface in crowded halls in New York and minstrel shows as far away as Tokyo Bay. It was sung by Bing Crosby and Bugs Bunny and John Prine, and in black-and-white movies, the kind where Shirley Temple tapped across the screen hand in hand with an old Black gentleman in servant’s clothes (played by the legendary Bill Robinson). The song is a thing from antiquity, yes, but in 2022, in an America at war with itself, this book seems to arrive just in time. Bingham, in her words, scrubs off some of that burned cork to see what is underneath.
For Bingham herself, a Harvard-educated child of white privilege whose ancestors owned slaves, it would present a personal contradiction. She wore the big hats, too, and wept when the song played, but would come to realize the sin was not in loving a song but in failing to understand it. And understanding it, knowing its beginnings and long, tortured journey into a third century of painted-over suffering, she reckoned that it did not belong to her, but to those wounded most by it; they should decide its future.
Her book offers its readers the same choice, between understanding and sweet nostalgia, between the splinters and thorns of history and about the worst thing people can do to one another, and a smooth, thin, polished veneer.
You have summed up the book perfectly. Unfortunately I don't believe either the women in the big hats or the men in morning suits will ever want to understand the original lyrics of this song or even care to hear them, particularly the 2nd and 3rd verses.
I'm a man in Indiana whose dad, brothers, and heart is in Kentucky! Brandenburg is home.
On a hot June night ... couldn't imagine a better place to be...rip John , God bless Kentucky
Thanks for all of the songs and memories for this ol’ Kentucky boy. I’ll miss you like crazy.
what a beautiful song to wake up to 💜😊🌻
I love this song I was born in Lexington Kentucky. John Prine was one of my favorite singers I listened to him every night and I wish you the best in heaven John. God bless you. Good night John I wish you the best in heaven.
I'm writing this as I a get home from my grandmothers funeral. Her family goes back 300 years deep in Louisville. She had a fight with parkinson's that actually went longer that Ali's did, that hard ass of a woman. To end the service they played this song. Not this artist. But this song. Was the first time I ever heard this song but in that moment I felt like I knew every word of it. I know I'm just preaching to a youtube comment section. But this is the first song I've ever cried to. I love you Nana. Thank you for everything you've ever done for Colin and I. Words can't describe how much I miss you and miss taking care of you. I love you.
Leaving Virginia tonight for Graves County/ thinking of Mayfield! God Bless those tornado victims!
Farewell John and thank you for the music.
Moved to North Carolina from Kentucky not long ago. There’s a lot more people here and a lot of people seem to look you up and down, but not in your eyes. I sure do miss home.
you've made me cry, yet again. god bless you john.
Thanks John..Kentucky loves you..RIP!
I was lucky enough to have seen him perform twice at the Everly Brothers home coming in Central city Ky.
My brother and I got to meet him and got his autograph.
Rest In Peace John, you were one of a kind and you will be missed. He is a National Treasure!!!!
Such a shame he passed. I was looking forward to seeing him in May.
Something about John Prine 's voice always makes me feel like crying.There is a quality of sadness even in the funny songs
Its heartbreaking, Rest In Peace John you were a beautiful man.
My grandmas parents were Irish and she was born in Kentucky... They had people play this on the bagpipes at her funeral.
R.I.P John Love them all since the 70s.
Oh, my sweet home. I love Kentucky!! My heart yearns for you when I’m away. 💕💕
Damn... I know it’s only been a short while.. but I miss John Prine... so much... already..🎶🥺😞🥺
Beautiful John. Cant wait see you in Manchester UK.
Thank you, John Prine, and well done. Rest in peace.
You wrote the soundtrack to my younger days, John. Thank you.
Oh John Prine.. we love ya & miss ya ❤️
A voice from Paradise! How we will always miss you, John!
What a loss. Loved John Prine for a long long time. No other like him🎶❤
Beautiful music. Thanks for sharing with us.
Greetings from The Netherlands
Reminds me of my parents both born and bred in Kentucky! My Daddy used to song this to me as a child... RIP Daddy. I love my Old Kentucky Home when I used to live there too! ❤️🇺🇸❤️
Awwwwwnnnnnn
It's really a nice place to be
How are you doing 🤗
Mrs Flowers made us stand and sing My Old Kentucky Home every morning before our 2nd grade class 1968
I just found you, My Dear Mr Prine. A long time ago, a friend mentioned you, but I never followed up. Alas! I just discovered you cause you're on the tv Folk Music channel, so I've lived 57 years without you--what a waste my life has been. You and Dickens--who I didn't read until I was 40--how dim my life has been without you! If you come to New Orleans, I will be there, if I have to
I Live in Louisville Kentucky, this song is a classic for sure
RIP John and Thank You For All You Gave Us, a True American Voice
Leave it to March Madness… biggest hoops upset ever?! Ouch. This song is pure joy. Miss you boys love Uncle Tyler. Thanks for posting.
Sou do Brasil. Sonho em morar nos Estados Unidos. Amo a cultura, música, costumes americanos. Saudações meus amigos.🇧🇷🇺🇸
Desculpa cara mas é muito diferente do que vc imagina.
It's the greatest place on earth and with an attitude like that you seem like you would be a great addition
Saudações de Atlanta!
We’d love to have you in KY!!
And NC
Plesala je jedno ljeto, P. O. Ekström
"Svi smo mi marionete... svi moramo plesati kad Udes potegne svoje konce."
John Prine is such an integral part of who I am, his music interwoven with the fabric of my being. We're getting on in our years, but our growin uncertainties about the future are outweighed by our willingness, nooo eagerness!, to enjoy what we can squeeze out of life for not just ourselves but also those we love....some whom we've never even met.
May your days be merry John. May your days be merry.
The sheer simplicity John put into his music and his vocals are nothing short of sublime,rest easy brother 😢
"gone with the wind"
thank you rhett for this song
Thank you John for everything. God bless you sir and Rest In Peace.
His catalog is so unbelievable that this can be overlooked.
Our state song is so powerful bc it makes me nostalgic for and miss my home state even tho I live in it! Haha John Prine’s version here is excellent.
Somewhere in Kentucky is a Hardyville. A friend of mine just passed away and she was raised in KY and loved this song.