When I first learned this song as a kid, I thought it was about a horse. Later I realized it was about a slave in the American Old South, and wondered what its origins were; it seemed horrifying and strange to me that kids go around singing folk songs like this or "Oh Susanna", that were basically about slaves and slavery.

Old Black Joe was written by Stephen Foster in 1860. Foster wrote many songs for minstrel shows, which at the time were usually comic and rather crude. Foster wanted to use the minstrel show for tragic songs as well, in order to show black people as human beings with great depth of feeling, rather than as objects of mockery. He wanted to emphasize the feelings of longing and loss that any person can experience, and to inspire listeners to compassion.

Old Black Joe

by Stephen Foster

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

Chorus
I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

Why do I weep, when my heart should feel no pain,
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again?
Grieving for forms now departed long ago.
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

Chorus

Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee?
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

Chorus

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