Virginia has no official state song. It has a Virginia Official Song Emeritus. Ok. So what’s the problem? No one would be caught singing the Virginia Official Song Emeritus, Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, written by an African American man named James Allen Bland who was born in 1854 in New York.
Some history:
James “Jimmy” Allen Bland was born on October 22, 1854 in Flushing, Long Island, New York. When he was 12 and living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he saw an old black man playing a banjo and singing spirituals. He fell in love with the banjo and tried to make one using bailing wire for strings. This didn’t work very well and, besides, a big kid took it and broke it into pieces. Jimmy’s father bought him a real banjo for $8.00 and Jimmy taught himself to play… very well.
Later, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Jimmy finished high school and enrolled in Howard University. He was so talented and had become so proficient with the banjo that he was entertaining professionally at private parties and in hotels and restaurants from the time he was 14.
At Howard University, he met a young lady named Mannie Friend. On a trip with Mannie to her birthplace in Tidewater, Virginia, Alan Bland composed “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”. Sitting on the banks of the James River, Mannie wrote the words down on paper while Jimmy played and sang to her.
The song “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” became a hit or whatever one called a popular song back in those days and it was adopted in 1940 as the State Song of Virginia. Checking the math, the song was probably written in the 1870’s. Some 70 years later it was adopted by Virginia? By 1940, they should have known better. See for yourself:
Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
words and music by James Bland
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There’s where the old darkey’s heart am long’d to go,
There’s where I labor’d so hard for old massa,
Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
No place on earth do I love more sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.CHORUS:
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
There’s where this old darkey’s heart am long’d to go.Carry me back to old Virginny,
There let me live ’till I wither and decay,
Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wander’d,
There’s where this old darkey’s life will pass away.
Massa and missis have long gone before me,
Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
There we’ll be happy and free from all sorrow,
There’s where we’ll meet and we’ll never part no more.
This song went through a several changes. The title was changed from ‘Virginny’ to Virginia. When former Governor Doug Wilder was a state senator in 1970, he took strong objection to the state song and rightfully so. His attempts to retire the song were unsuccessful. During his governorship, he attempted to spur legislation to do away with this unacceptable state sanctioned song. It didn’t happen. In the 90’s there was much back and forth legislation to change words, to retire the song, to search for a new one, etc. Finally, legislation designated Carry Me Back to Old Virginia as the official state song emeritus was signed by Governor George Allen on March 20, 1997. To read about the back and forth legislation click here.
At the time, a contest was opened for a new state song. In the late 90’s, the search for a new song was suspended. The situation is in limbo and Virginia has no current state song. Here is a case where the traditional song was simply too offensive to be considered, even revised. Surely with the talent in Virginia, a new song could be written. Out of all the songs in the world, why is there nothing about Virginia, other than some old minstrel song that is over 100 years old? We are better than that!
May I suggest “Traffic Jam” by James Taylor?
Well I left my job about 5 o’clock.
It took fifteen minutes go three blocks—
Just in time to stand in line,
With a freeway looking like a parking lot.
Damn this traffic jam—
How I hate to be late.
It hurts my motor to go so slow—
Damn this traffic jam.
Time I get home, my supper’ll be cold—
Damn this traffic jam.
Now I almost had a heart attack
Looking in my rear view mirror
I saw myself the next car back
Looking in the rear view mirror
‘Bout to have a heart attack
I said
– Chorus –
Now when I die I don’t want no coffin
I thought about it all too often
Just strap me in behind the wheel
And bury me with my automobile
– Chorus –
Now I used to think that I was cool
Running around on fossil fuel
Until I saw what I was doing
Was driving down the road to ruin
I think it’s perfect.
That sure sounds like the Virginia that many of us in this area know.
Uh, Moon-howler, do we really need a state song? Until you brought it up just now, I couldn’t remember even missing it. However, if we in a state full of horses could manage to arrange for a traditional, high-stakes race like those in Louisville and Baltimore, we might find a nice use for a good opening song. Other than that, I don’t know. Actually, Emma’s suggested entry might do. It would probably fit right in with trying to get through the traffic to the racetrack. Funny, I immediately envisioned Taylor’s composition being sung by Jim Henson’s Muppets!
If we ever got a serious horse race we would have to have a state song. What do we do, borrow Marylands? Not sure Emma’s suggestion would work at a horse race.
However if we sell our liquor stores we will become Maryland so perhaps borrowing their song would be so odd. Good chance no one would even notice. A liquor store on every corner.
I heard one of our supervisors cheering about the fact we might not be in the business of selling intoxicating substances yesterday. I was NOT pleased.
Obviously, we have gotten along all this time without a state song. It might be easier when kids study Virginia to have a state song. You seriously cannot trot out that old one. Shudder.
@Moon-howler
Don’t forget DC as privatized liquor stores like MD. Boy, I sure don’t want VA in the likes of those two. I guess the Republicans would like us to join those ranks…NO THANKS!!
A liquor store in neighborhoods without the state controlling the alcohol sales would be big trouble for some already troubled neighborhoods. I see the local thugs being a real problem for the corner stop stores. Would we also be getting drive-up windows at these new retailers? Just a thought.
Selling the stores would make an awful lot of Virginians unemployed also. Not only would they become unemployed but they would also get bounced out of the state retirement system. Now that is a huge deal.
Many of the state stores are also leased. No money there.
I do think privatization would bring in crime and …gasp…loitering. You don’t loiter in front of a state store; not for very long at least.
I was very disappointed at what I heard at least one of our bocs say on this subject yesterday. It was down-right prissy. Carrie Nation doesn’t become the gentleman from Coles.
I forgot to say that a lot of the education money comes out the liquor procedes. Even the dry counties get their unfair share. I seriously doubt that a private owner is going to replace that money.
Maybe we just have more gambling to replace the ed funding lost from selling the state stores.
The good news is we can give stores like the Dixie liquor store right across Key Bridge a real run for its money. We can undercut their sales, stay open until all hours of the night.
Then we can be a liquor running, gun running and cigarette running state. That ought to make Mayor Bloomberg happy!
Not sure what the connection is between liquor stors and a state song, but boy are you off the rails on the liquor store sales. There is no reason for public employees to be my drug of choice pusher. The regulated private sector can and does do that just fine. Revenues will go up in the short and long term, through property and inventory sales, taxation and better marketing and – and – fixed public costs will go down. I will miss my drug subsidy, but the better good is at stake. Most of the leases and those employees who want to will transfer to the private owner. ABC public employees in the store have no impact on any of the issues you raised. The State and the County can set standards for where such stores are located as they do now.
In case anyone cares…Va has an official state drink. Milk! Maybe the state can adopt the Girl Scout Milk song as a state song:
Don’t gimme no tea, no tea
Don’t gimme no pop, no pop
Jus’ gimme some milk
moo, moo, moo, moo
Jus’ gimme some milk
moo, moo, moo, moo!
Both issues deal with tradition. We slithered off topic. That happens occassionally.
PWC, I strongly disagree with you. First off, $1.25 Billion from ABC went back to VA over the past 5 years. A mere $103.4 million was returned in 2008. About $335,000 came back to Prince William and the incorporated towns. Some of this money is taxes but some of it is profits.
Traditionally, Virginia chose to control its own ABC back during the time when the 21st Amendment was being ratified by the states. It created a strange hybrid situation where the state stores would control hard liquor and spirits and other stores could sell beer and wine. That’s just the Virginia way and it is profitable.
http://www.abc.state.va.us/admin/hist1.htm (the History of ABC)
Do I think the government can do a better job? You betcha. They have had over 70 years to practice. There is more crime and more loitering in states that don’t have their own stores. There is also more influence of organized crime.
As for the state employees, why on earth would any of them want to go work for a private indivudual? They have great benefits. They also are part of the VA Retirement System. No one would want to voluntarily give that up.
I think the people who are so willing to give away our traditions haven’t lived in Virginia all that long, or so it seems. I am also seeing some hostility to consumption of alcohol. I have heard a little pejorative tone in several folks’ voices. Oddly enough, those are all people who I have seen drinking.
The D.A.R. as well as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Sons of the Confederate Veterans, along with a wide variety of other fraternal philanthropic organizations here in the Commonwealth, still sing the original state song at conventions and special ceremonies. They include the song, because Carry Me Back to Old Virginny was the song that was sung by our forefathers and most of the events are held in their honor.
There is nothing wrong with the original song, given that it is written from the perspective of a servant/slave who longed for his Virginia home.
Apparently the chief concern of pc worshipers is that the lyrics reflect the fact that someone who was a slave in those days could still harbor warm feelings for their home state and even for, “…ol’ massa.”
What a broad statement at the top…”no one would be caught dead singing this song…” I was taught the song in school as a child and still sing it today from time to time. Modern progressives consider it racist…but an African American WROTE THE SONG! No, I dont think it should be our state song anymore, but I dont think the song itself is evil. PC is over the top these days…
Tyler, it is a song that cannot be justified in public in today’s times. Those organizations are private so they may sing anything they want.
I think it is important to note that the song was not adopted as the official state song until 1940. That is really a little late to be selecting a song that inappropriate. Let me also say that I have no objections to those organizations singing ‘Dixie,’ Bonnie Blue Flag or hundreds of others from the time period.
Carry me Back to Ole Virginny wasn’t written until several decades after the Civil War. It came along more than 100 years after the Revolutionary War. I am not really sure why the DAR and the USC would be singing it. Since I am eligible to belong to both organizations, perhaps I should contact them and ask.
There is plenty wrong with a song like ‘Carry me Back to Ole Virginny’ being an official, codified song of Virginia.