{"product_id":"my-old-kentucky-home-the-astonishing-life-and-reckoning-of-an-iconic-american-song-9780525520795","title":"My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe long journey of an American song, from its enormous success in the early 1850s, written by a white man, considered the father of American music, about a Black man being sold downriver, performed for decades by white men in blackface, and the song, an anthem of longing and pain, turned upside down and, over time, becoming a celebration of happy plantation life.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is the state song of Kentucky, a song that has inhabited hearts and memories, and in perpetual reprise, stands outside time; sung each May, before every Kentucky Derby, since 1930. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWritten by Stephen Foster nine years before the Civil War, \"My Old Kentucky Home\" made its way through the wartime years to its decades-long run as a national minstrel sensation for which it was written; from its reference in the pages of Margaret Mitchell's \u003ci\u003eGone with the Wind\u003c\/i\u003e to being sung on \u003ci\u003eThe Simpsons\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMad Men\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOriginally called \"Poor Uncle Tom, Good-Night!\" and inspired by America's most famous abolitionist novel, it was a lament by an enslaved man, sold by his master, who must say goodbye to his beloved family and birthplace, with hints of the brutality to come: \"The head must bow and the back will have to bend \/ Wherever the darky may go \/ A few more days, and the trouble all will end \/ In the field where the sugar-canes grow . . .\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMy Old Kentucky Home, \u003c\/i\u003e Emily Bingham explores the long, strange journey of what has come to be seen by some as an American anthem, an integral part of our folklore, culture, customs, foundation, a living symbol of a \"happy past.\" But \"My Old Kentucky Home\" was never just a song. It was always a song about slavery with the real Kentucky home inhabited by the enslaved and shot through with violence, despair, and degradation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBingham explores the song's history and permutations from its decades of performances across the continent, entering into the bloodstream of American life, through its twenty-first-century reassessment. It is a song that has been repeated, taught, and passed down from generation to generation, bridging a nation's fraught disconnect between history and warped illusion, a revelation of the country's evolving self and a resonant changing emblem of America's original sin whose blood-drenched shadow hovers and haunts us still.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Knopf Publishing Group\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/03\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780525520795\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 352\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.25lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/28\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2022 pg. 138\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Emily Bingham","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41839954133173,"sku":"9780525520795","price":25.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_6a589916-19d8-4a84-90bc-22019cafaaf8.jpg?v=1646731110","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/my-old-kentucky-home-the-astonishing-life-and-reckoning-of-an-iconic-american-song-9780525520795","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}