Talk:My Old Kentucky Home

Page Updates
and I would like to discuss changes to the "My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night!" via this talk page before any more changes are made to the page. Reverting the page back and forth is not resolving the article, and recent changes have created a biased interpretation of this piece based on sources that are not first-period, but modern opinion pieces that in some cases lack clear citation from reliable sources. User:Stevietheman has served as a moderator before for this article.

{{{ping|2601:485:4280:951:E9CB:7D4:6433:A6BC}} You have been asked in a prior edit you made above to discuss changes on this talk page before making edits. Reverting the page back and forth is not resolving the article, and recent changes have created a biased interpretation of this piece based on sources that are not first-period, but modern opinion pieces that in some cases lack clear citation from reliable sources, or are simply the opinions of the writers. Fiction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pather1295 (talk • contribs) 18 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't know if my IP address is still the same. I made those edits (2601:410:4301:32d0:d48d:32c5:4200:1f7a) to the page discussing the song's fraught history. All of the edits I included were cited from reliable and relevant scholarship. The scholarship on this song is settled that "My Old Kentucky Home" originated as a sentimental minstrel song in the vein of "Old Folks at Home" or "Old Black Joe." These were minstrel songs that removed much of the overt racist imagery and sounds (e.g., dialect) to appeal to white middle class audiences. Contemporary scholarship (particularly the work of historian Emily Bingham) also supports the claim that the song experienced its greatest renaissance during the Jim Crow era as a means of reinscribing a "Southern" image of Kentucky's past. The article as it currently exists downplays the racist history of this song by denying its origin in blackface minstrel music and ignoring the widespread mobilization of the song to portray a romanticized vision of the antebellum South around the turn of the 20th century. I primarily cited secondary literature by historians and musicologists, who provide contemporary primary sources in their work. However, any prose or citations that I've included to support this argument, including those citations of contemporary primary sources, have been removed to preserve a false history that this song's historical legacy is primarily located in an abolitionist history. That is simply not borne out in the scholarly literature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:410:4280:1ED0:0:0:0:4582 (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * 2601:410:4280:1ED0:0:0:0:4582. You will make much more progress once you register a user name. You are still totally anonymous. Just as I am.
 * Discussions are much easier to follow. You can easily bring up past contributions of yours. Do you have some diffs showing the info you reported above? It would be very helpful to see the info and the exact references. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

The edits as of August 2, 2021 are a good example. I referred to the song as a plantation melody or sentimental minstrel song and cited the 1853 edition (primary source) publication of the song as a "plantation melody" for Christy's Minstrels. I also cite William Austin's book (secondary source), which classifies (as does all the Foster scholarship) the song as an example of Foster's minstrel songs. That citation of the original publication has since been removed. Similar previous edits were reverted on the grounds that "Ken Emerson's definition is the best source." Emerson also describes the song in the context of "plantation ballads." These are minstrel songs. The "plantation" in the name refers to the idea that an imagined Black character (usually sung by a white person) was the subject of the song; it distinguishes these songs from other generic ballads.

More troublingly, though, any references to the songs longer and powerful legacy as a sentimental song about slavery and a romanticized antebellum South have been removed. These edits also included this text: "Historian Maryjean Wall writes that this “firmed up imagined notions of the antebellum South with the race.”[15] Wall, along with other historians such as Emily Bingham and Anne Marshall, contextualize the celebration and enshrinement of "My Old Kentucky Home"—as a sentimental song about the antebellum period—within the broader turn towards romanticized imagery of the antebellum period during the early twentieth century.[16][17]" Wall and Bingham were cited but removed because these were "biased modern opinion pieces." These works are both peer-reviewed historical texts, and they are only examples of a larger body of peer-reviewed literature that makes very similar arguments. This is vital context for its adoption by the commonwealth as a state song during this period.

Further, this article draws very heavily on a single quote from Douglass and the song's inspiration in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This is important information and offers a new narrative of the song that was ignored for much of the period between 1853 and the present. However, this narrative cannot be said to have been the dominant understanding and legacy of "MOKH" for the last 150 years. First, Douglass spoke very frequently of his dislike for minstrelsy—including the "sentimental" songs such as "Old Folks at Home." His quote in this article is an aberration in the larger volume of his writing. Second, Foster's song was more frequently used in contexts that reaffirmed slavery rather than challenged it—such as many of the "Tom" shows. Third, Foster himself was not anti-slavery, and any antislavery message in the song is ambiguous at best. Foster and his immediate family were "doughfaces" or Northern Democrats who evidenced no resistance to slavery. The inspiration from "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is more likely a reflection of the ubiquity and popularity of the novel rather than an attempt to jump on an abolitionist bandwagon. Finally, the song itself contains no direct reference to Uncle Tom's Cabin. In fact, all the more overt lyrics referring to the novel (a hot-button topic) were removed before publication. The song depicts an unnamed enslaved Black narrator consoling an unnamed woman because he is being sold "down the river." He longs and mourns the "old Kentucky home" (still a plantation) instead of longing for freedom. This puts the song closer to "Old Folks at Home" ("still longing for the old plantation") than to any abolitionist song. After its publication, the song was put to many uses; however, as Emily Bingham has noted in her recent book (Knopf, 2022), the song's larger legacy over the nineteenth and twentieth century (largely ignored in the current version of the article) is as a sentimentalizing picture of the antebellum South. Like Gone with the Wind, it paints a happy image of the antebellum South for the benefit largely of white people. This context is very important to paint a historically accurate picture of the song's history to the modern day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CJmusicology (talk • contribs) 00:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * . Thanks for the info. Please learn about diff links if you don't already know about them. Please provide a few diff links.
 * Better yet, please provide a proposed paragraph to put in the article. Complete with references. They will show up in the talk section if the talk refs template is there. Don't indent the talk refs template.

talk refs


 * More discussion can follow it. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:53, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

May 7, 2022 Kentucky Derby. Song is in the news
Song is in the news in a big way around the May 7, 2022 Kentucky Derby.

Google News search:
 * stephen foster my old kentucky home.

I read the current Wikipedia article:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=My_Old_Kentucky_Home&oldid=1083831921

It doesn't cover the info in the latest news. Maybe others (with more time than me) can do so. I found the article's info on Frederick Douglass and his opinions on the song to be interesting. "awakens sympathies for the slave,"

My interpretation of his opinion is that he likes that it cares for the slave, but there is a lot more to the story. Back then it was progress.

But nowadays people see its failings, and the intentional and/or unintentional whitewashing, of its authors and interpreters. See the news stories. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:44, 4 May 2022 (UTC)


 * There is a NY Times article (yesterday, 3 May 2022) that covers some of these topics. It would surely be useful to cite.  The NY Times article is a review of the new book "My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song", by Emily Bingham. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/books/review/my-old-kentucky-home-emily-bingham.html I hope that helps the discussion. MDW333 (talk) 08:38, 4 May 2022 (UTC)


 * See also this NBC News article:
 * https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kentucky-derby-will-play-my-old-kentucky-home-despite-criticism-n1239415
 * Original song lyrics are so vaguely written (to our modern day understanding of those old lyrics) that it can have multiple interpretations.
 * What bugs me is that it paints a picture of happy versus unhappy slavery. It's still slavery. It may have been progress in 1853 when the song was published to talk about unhappy slavery.
 * But it is part of the myth of happy slavery, and happy slavery plantations.
 * https://www.google.com/search?q=happy+slavery+plantations
 * I am sure others must have discussed this in the many other articles from mainstream publications found in the Google News search for stephen foster my old kentucky home.
 * NBC news article also discusses a protest that is planned for Derby day:
 * "Thousands of demonstrators calling for justice for [Breonna] Taylor are expected to gather near the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, replacing the traditional crowds of dapper dandies and women in fanciful hats who will be absent from the stands because of the pandemic."
 * --Timeshifter (talk) 03:03, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources criticizing the song. Especially its use at the Kentucky Derby

 * See Google News search: stephen foster my old kentucky home.
 * See Google search: my old kentucky home kentucky derby.

There are many articles criticizing the song. And news media too. The controversy over the song at the 2022 Kentucky Derby continued at the 2023 one: There are many more articles from reliable sources. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Controversy continues as ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ tradition rolls on at Derby. April 30, 2023. WAVE (TV). Emily Bingham, author of the book "My Old Kentucky Home. The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song", is also in that news clip.
 * Once Again, Churchill Downs Will Ignore the Racist Ties to ‘My Old Kentucky Home’. By Pat Forde. May 6, 2022. Sports Illustrated. "Packaged as a paean to soft-edged nostalgia, when in reality its lyrics tell a tale of a slave being taken from his family and sold downriver to die on a sugarcane plantation?"
 * The complicated story behind the Kentucky Derby’s opening song. Emily Bingham’s ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ is a sweeping chronicle of a history that includes Frederick Douglass, Shirley Temple, Colonel Sanders, ‘Mad Men’ — and of course, the Derby. Review by Rebecca Gayle Howell. May 3, 2022. Washington Post.

"Columbia" caprice Op 34
Not sure where in the article to put this, but mention somewhere that Gottschalk's "Columbia" caprice Op 34 was based on the song Footpathandstile (talk) 11:21, 26 April 2024 (UTC)