"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny"

Nicole and Barban dance to a jazz version of "Carry me back to Old Virginny" while Dick goes on drinking. The Cinema of Malcolm Lowry: 'Tender Is the Night' Ed. Miguel Mota & Paul Tiessen

"Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" is a song which was written by James A. Bland (1854 – 1911), an African American minstrel who wrote over 700 folk songs. Written in 1878, soon after the American Civil War, when many of the newly freed slaves were struggling to find work, the song has become controversial in modern times. Read more on Wikipedia



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 darke'ys heart am long'd to go,
There's where I labored 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 wandered,
There's where this old darke'ys 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.

Read more about the song here

Here is a jazz version of the song from Benny Carter: