Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'

Subject: RE: Background: Stephen Foster song
From: GUEST,Ross Miller, Visitor
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 01:31 AM

I was searching for the lyrics, found this thread, and am much the wiser, thanks to you all.

The first two lines of the third stanza -

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave 'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore

- lend credence to those who have suggested that the song is about the plight of the Irish during the potato famine.

The "sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave" implies news of distress from the homeland, and the "wail that is heard upon the shore" refers to the exodus to America. "The troubled wave" means the Atlantic Ocean, by virtue of the literary device synecdoche, which substitutes the part for the whole. Between England and America, it certainly had been a troubled bit of water in Foster's lifetime.

Thanks for the perspective, folks.

RM

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster song
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 03 - 01:45 AM

I've always thought of the potato famine in connection with the lyrics.What about the music though? It reminds me of The Wearing of the Green .

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: GUEST,ester
Date: 18 May 10 - 01:59 PM

what is the history of this song

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: mg
Date: 18 May 10 - 10:43 PM

I have also heard of the connection to the potato famine (and no I will not call it the Great Hunger). The pale drooping maiden verse especially was supposed to describe the young Irish girls.

And as for what Big Red posted in 2002...it sounds like they took a verse from Swanee River and tacked it on to hard times..

Or was it Old Kentucky Home..
from memory..they hunt no more for the possum and the coon by the river the hill and the shore..they sing no more by the rising of the moon on the bench by the old cabin door..

No..it was Swaneee River. Well, it is not that similar I guess..mg

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 May 10 - 11:23 PM

Biographers believe the song (published 1855) refers to the hard times Foster was experiencing at the time. Both parents died in 1855, he was in debt and had to withdraw money from his publishers, his friend Charles Shirra had died in 1853, and for a time he was separated from his Jane.
Also hard times on the American labor scene.
Nothing to do with the potato famine or any events in the British Isles.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: mg
Date: 19 May 10 - 03:33 AM

SO what do pale drooping maidens have to do with personal debt or parents dying? mg

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 May 10 - 01:56 PM

Poetic license. And shed a tear for "those frail forms fainting at the door."
Typical mid-19th C. parlor song weepery.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: LadyJean
Date: 19 May 10 - 11:13 PM

Stephen Collins Foster was from Pittsburgh, and we're rather proud of him here. Get in touch with the Pennsylvania room at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, or the University of Pittsburgh, they have a large collection of Foster's artifacts.

At one of the last Smoky City Folk Festivals we had a magnificent downpour, and the last diehards took refuge under the bridge at Point Park, where the accoustics are amazing. As the rain poured and the thunder roared the musicians played and we all sang "Hard Times Come Again No More". It was wonderful.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 20 May 10 - 08:51 AM

You might find it interesting to check out this link - Stepen Foster's Sketchbook - hand written notes.

It makes interesting reading, with his ideas and crossings out.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 May 10 - 02:09 PM

GtD, the link comes up systems error. You might try again tomorrow, probably the library is having a bit of computer trouble.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 21 May 10 - 04:34 AM

It didn't seem to like going direct to an image of a page, or maybe I managed to scramble the link. Try this one http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?c=sketchbook - hopefully you will get to the intro page.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: folktheatre
Date: 21 May 10 - 05:28 AM

As Dicho noted (I found this in a biography of Stephen Foster):
In 1863 Stephen wrote twenty-nine songs for "The Atheneum Collection of Hymns and Tunes for Church and Sunday School Use," published by Horace Waters. Most of these "hymns" are feeble little tunes, undistinguished
by either beauty or force of character. As a writer of Sunday-School hymns, Stephen Foster was not superior to his contemporaries whose very names are now forgotten. Several songs in the Atheneum Collection were reprinted later in similar volumes, and some of his best-known melodies were fitted to sacred (1) words. "Hard Times Come Again No More" was converted to "Sorrow Shall Come Again No More".

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 01:58 AM

This is Jon Boden's Folk Song a Day recording for November 16.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: GUEST,Ana
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 04:41 AM

Ironically I was reading an immigrant ship journal today, dated 1863 (UK - NZ), which included this reference (shows the song was popular in the UK in the early 60s):

"We have now been two months or eight weeks out of sight of land; and as I tread the deck of our lonely bark, how often the words of the song occur to me.

        While the waves are round me breaking,
        As I pace the deck alone,
        And my eye is vainly seeking,
        Some green leaf to rest upon,
        What would I not give to wander,
        Where my old companions dwell.
        Absence makes the heart grow fonder,
Verily I may sing with a vengeance, for I have good cause 'Hard times come again no more'."

---

Isle of Beauty, Fare-thee-well (click)

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: GUEST,squeezer17
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 06:07 PM

Q, wasn't it published in January 1855? If so, it was possibly written in 1854, before the death of his parents. So when it came out, far from coming again no more, hard times were just about to hit him.

Subject: RE: Background: StephenFoster's 'Hard Times'
From: GUEST,Ana
Date: 17 Nov 10 - 12:03 AM

Hey! thanks for the clicky - I didn't take the notes very well sorry (it was initially just for me), and the "hard times" reference comes later in the journal, within the paragraph

"Cooking, beyond what is done by the ship is not an easy matter; a
small frying or stew pan would have been very handy. We had some
strange messes to avoid eating the biscuits. What would some of our
honest Scotch folk that can always get plenty of flour, think of a
mixture of flour, thick pea-soup and steeped biscuits, baked into
scones and without baking soda. Verily I may sing with a vengeance,
for I have good cause "Hard times come again no more".
Ana