Ol' Man River

"Ol' Man River" (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II) is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a black dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show. Meant to be performed in a slow tempo, it is sung completely once by the dock worker "Joe" who travels with the boat, and, in the stage version, is heard four more times in brief reprises. Joe serves as a sort of musical one-man Greek chorus, and the song, when reprised, comments on the action, as if saying, "This has happened, but the river keeps rolling on anyway."

The song is notable for several aspects: the lyrical pentatonic-scale melody, the subjects of toil and social class, metaphor to the Mississippi, and as a bass solo (rare in musicals, solos for baritones or tenors being more common).

Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra had a no. 1 hit recording of the song in 1928 sung in a much faster tempo than Kern and Hammerstein intended, and featuring Bing Crosby on vocals and Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. A second version, by Paul Whiteman with Paul Robeson on vocals and sung in a dance tempo, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2006.

Read more about Ol' Man River:  Various Versions, Turning An Upbeat-sounding Melody Into A Tragic One, Paul Robeson's Alterations To The Song Lyrics, Parodies and References

Famous quotes containing the words man and/or river:

    I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.
    Harper Lee (b. 1926)

    The river sweats
    Oil and tar
    The barges drift
    With the turning tide
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)