This version is quite different from what we have in the Digital Tradition. Have we come up with a tune?
-Joe Offer-

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THE BRIGHT SUNNY SOUTH

1. In the bright sunny South, where in peace and content,
Where the days of my boyhood was carelessly spent,
From the bright spreading plains to the deep flowing streams,
Ever dear to my memory, has been since in my dreams.

2. I have the refinements and comforts of life,
To endure privations, starvation, and strife.
I have counted the cost, I have pledged my word,
I have shouldered my musket, I have belted my sword.

3. O father, dear father, for me do not weep,
For in some foreign country, I expect for to sleep:
To the dangers of war, I expect for to bear;
As to sickness and death, I expect for to share.

4. O mother, dear mother, for me do not weep,
For your good advice I shall forever keep:
You have taught me for to be brave, from a boy to a man;
Now I've started in defence of my own native land.

5. My friends and relations, I once had to part;
My wife and my children were dear to my heart.
I never shall forget when I tuck them by the hand,
And I started in defence of my own native land.

6. Here adieu to old Kentucky, I can no longer stay,
Hard times and the Yankees have forced me away,
Hard times and the Yankees have caused me to roam;
I am a poor soldier, I am a long way from home.

7. I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry;
If the Yankees don't kill me, I'll live till I die.
If Miss Mollie forsakes me and causes me to roam,
I am a poor soldier, a long way from home.

Contributed by Mr. Sam Turman, Buchanan,
Boyd County, Kentucky, July, 1918.


Source: Folk-songs of the South, John Harrington Cox, 1924

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Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on the song:

Sweet Sunny South (I), The [Laws A23]

DESCRIPTION: A young Southerner, armed and ready, bids farewell to family and sweetheart. He sets off for the war, hoping to return when the Yankees are driven off
AUTHOR: William Leach Bloomfield
EARLIEST DATE: 1853 (see NOTES)
KEYWORDS: war farewell
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,NE) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Laws A23, "The Sweet Sunny South"
FSCatskills 18, "The Bright Sunny South" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 97, "The Sweet Sunny Souoth" (1 text, 1 tune)
JHCox 76, "The Rebel Soldier" (2 texts, but only the first belongs here; the second is The Rebel Soldier)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 272-273, "Sweet Sunny South" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Mackenzie 49, "The Sunny South" (1 text)
DY 698, SUNNYSTH
Roud #800
RECORDINGS:
Dock Boggs, "Bright Sunny South" (on Boggs1, BoggsCD1, ClassBanj)
NOTES: Laws, obviously, considers this piece to be of American origin. Cazden et al, however, note that the versions hardly REQUIRE a setting in the American Civil War, and that one southern version refers to a FOREIGN war. In addition, the song has been found primarily in the North. On this basis Cazden argues for an Irish rather than southern American origin.
Gardner and Chickering's text has an interesting last few stanzas which wish that "from Union and Yankee our land shall be free." This sounds rather like a particularization from perhaps Kentucky or Missouri.
Gary Stanton tells me, "The song is first published in this version in 1853 by Firth, Pond & Co of New York, composed by Wm Leach Bloomfield, under the title 'Take Me Home' and is available for review on the American Memory site of the Library of Congress. The title page of the ballad reports that it was sung by Edwin P. Christy at Christy's American Opera House, N. Y. Laws considered this a Civil War Ballad, and it gained new popularity among confederate music publishers during the Civil War, including Blackmar & Bro, Augusta, Georgia who credited Eugene Raymond with rearranging the song. Later publishers would credit Raymond, and Gus Meade gives an impossibly early date for Raymond's edition." - RBW
Not to be confused with the sentimental song of the same name [in the Index as "Sweet Sunny South (II) - RBW], wherein the singer returns to his childhood home to find everyone dead and gone. The characteristic first lines of that song are "Take me back to the place where I first saw the light/To the sweet sunny south take me home." - PJS
Last updated in version 3.6
File: LA23

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