Ol' Man River

I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion over the weekend, which was broadcast from Town Hall, just a few blocks from Broadway. Coming back from intermission Garrison Keillor led the audience in a sing-along of some popular Broadway standards: There's No Business Like Show Business, Oh What a Beautiful Morning, and...Ol' Man River? Talk about the Sesame Street ditty "One of these things just doesn't belong." The first two are peppy feel-good numbers, but Ol' Man River, if you listen to the lyrics, is the kind of song you sing when you gave a gun in one hand and a bottle of rotgut in the other. Yet the Town Hall audience was yukking it up as the men in the audience tried to hit those low notes.

Ol' Man River is, of course, a great song, one that endures and has outlived its surroundings. It was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein for Showboat, which is now a curio of the early days of the history of the Broadway musical, full of political incorrectness. The first to sing it was Jules Bledsoe, but it is forever associated with Paul Robeson, who sang it in the first film version. The lyrics are written in a phonetic vernacular that can make one think of Amos and Andy and wince, and the original version contains that poisonous "N" word (that was later changed to "darkies," and is now "colored folks."

The song is sung by a dock worker bemoaning the state of himself and his people. He envies the Mississippi River, where he works, that continues to flow despite everything. Here are the original lyrics:

Dere's an ol' man called de Mississippi,
Dat's de ol' man dat I'd like to be,
What does he care if de world's got troubles?
What does he care if de land ain't free?
Ol' Man River,
Dat Ol' Man River,
He mus' know sumpin',
But don' say nothin';
He jes' keeps rollin',
He keeps on rollin' along.
He don't plant taters,
He don't plant cotton,
An' dem dat plants 'em
Is soon forgotten,
But Ol' Man River,
He jes' keeps rollin' along.
You an' me, we sweat an' strain,
Body all achin' and racked with pain.
"Tote dat barge! Lift dat bale!"
Git a little drunk,
An' you lands in jail!
Ah gits weary,
An' sick o' tryin',
Ah'm tired o' livin',
And skeered o' dyin',
But Ol' Man River,
He jes' keeps rollin' along!

I can't hear the couplet: "Ah'm tired o' livin, and skeered o' dyin'" without thinking that it basically sums up human existence, and prefigures existentialism in a light-hearted musical comedy. It's incredibly powerful and moving.

Robeson performed the song in concert, and changed the lyrics slightly. Instead of "git a little drunk an' you lands in jail," he sang, "Show a little grit and you land in jail," and then alters the world-weariness of those last few lines to something far more uplifting: "But I keeps laffin'/ Instead of cryin' / I must keep fightin'; / Until I'm dyin', / And Ol' Man River, / He'll just keep rollin' along!"

Ol' Man River has been sung by many over the years, from Bing Crosby to Frank Sinatra to Judy Garland, but I think it is irrevocably linked to the African-American experience in the U.S., and is right up there with Strange Fruit, Eyes on the Prize and We Shall Overcome. I find it a strange choice for an amiable sing-along among National Public Radio listeners.