Song of America: Nelly Was a Lady

Music by Stephen Foster

Text by Stephen Foster

Performer : Charles Szabo

Text of Nelly Was a Lady:

Down on de Mississippi floating,
Long time I trabble on de way,
All night de cottonwood a toting,
Sing for my true lub all de day.

Nelly was a lady,
Last night she died,
Toll de bell for lubly Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.

Now I'm unhappy, and I'm weeping,
Can't tote de cottonwood no more;
Last night, while Nelly was a sleeping,
Death came a knockin' at de door.

Nelly was a lady,
Last night she died,
Toll de bell for lubly Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.

When I saw my Nelly in de morning,
Smile till she open'd up her eyes,
Seem'd like de light ob day a dawning,
Jist 'fore de sun begin to rise.

Close by de margin ob de water,
Whar de lone weeping willow grows,
Dar lib'd Virginny's lubly daughter;
Dar she in death may find repose.

Nelly was a lady,
Last night she died,
Toll de bell for lubly Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.

Down in de meadow, 'mong de clober,
Walk wid my Nelly by my side;
Now all dem happy days am ober,
Farewell, my dark Virginny bride.

Nelly was a lady,
Last night she died,
Toll de bell for lubly Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.

 

Nelly Was a Lady:

"Nelly was a Lady" was written and composed by Stephen Foster in 1849. As Ken Emerson writes in Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture:

"'Nelly was a Lady' was a milestone in Stephen Foster's development... By merging the minstrel ditty with the parlour ballad, he not only overcame and resolved some of his own musical ambivalence and conflict--the push-pull between respectability and rebellion, the bourgeois and the bawdy--he also reconciled black and white, rescuing blackface from the overt rascism that had characterized it from the outset."

--Christie Finn