Subject: Origins: JEANIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR
From:
masato sakurai
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 05:55 AM
I DREAM OF JEANNIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR (Stephen Foster) is in the DT. The title of the first edition, however, is JEANIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR, and some corrections and an addition of verse 2 are necessary if it means the original. The last 2 lines of each verse (not CHORUS) are not the same throughout.
JEANIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR
I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Borne, like a vapor, on the summer air;
I see her tripping where the bright streams play,
Happy as the daisies that dance on her way.
Many were the wild notes her merry voice would pour,
Many were the blithe birds that warbled them o'er:
Oh! I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Floating, like a vapor, on the soft, summer air.
I long for Jeanie with the day dawn smile,
Radiant in gladness, warm with winning guile;
I hear her melodies, like joys gone by,
Sighing round my heart o'er the fond hopes that die:
Sighing like the night wind and sobbing like the rain,
Wailing for the lost one that comes not again:
Oh! I long for Jeanie, and my heart bows low,
Never more to find her where the bright waters flow.
I sigh for Jeanie, but her light form strayed
Far from the fond hearts round her native glade;
Her smiles have vanished and her sweet songs flown,
Flitting like the dreams that have cheered us and gone.
Now the nodding wild flowers* may wither on the shore
While her gentle fingers will cull them no more;
Oh! I sigh for Jeanie with the light brown hair,
Floating like a vapor, on the soft summer air.
*"flow'rs" (as in the DT) would be better.
The sheet music is in the Levy collection (also in American Memory; Click here):
Title: Foster's Melodies. No.26. Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Written and Composed by Stephen C. Foster.
Publication: New York: Firth, Pond & Co., No.1 Franklin Square, 1854.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair, Borne, like a vapor, on the summer air
First Line of Chorus: I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair, Floating, like a vapor, on the summer air
Engraver, Lithographer, Artist: Lith. of Sarony & Co. N.Y.
Plate Number: 2796
Subject: Portraits
Subject: Courtship & love
Subject: Death
Call No.: Box: 067 Item: 086
Note: "The name Jennie, not Jeanie, appears consistently in the draft text on leaves [41v], [42r], and [42v] of Foster's manuscript book; the composer's niece suggested that the publisher asked for the change, but avowed that the song was always known to Foster as 'Jennie with the Light Brown Hair' (see Chronicles, pp. 451-52)." -- S. Saunders and D.L. Root, eds., The Music of Stephen C. Foster: A Critical Edition, vol. 1 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, p. 489). The Chronicles is available online (Click here). The title was retained as "Jeanie ..." in Morrison Foster's Biography, Songs & Musical Compositions of Stephen C. Foster (Percy F. Smith Prinitng and Lithography Co., 1896, pp. 69-70).
~Masato
Here's the DT version, for comparison.
-Joe Offer-
I DREAM OF JEANNIE WITH THE LIGHT BROWN HAIR (DT Lyrics)
(Stephen Foster)
I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair
Borne like a vapor on the summer air
I see her tripping where the bright streams play
Happy as the daisies that dance on her way.
Many were the wild notes her merry voice would pour,
Many were the blithe birds that warbled them o'er
CHORUS:
I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair
Floating like a vapor on the soft, summer air.)
I sigh for Jeannie, but her light form strayed
Far from the fond parts round her native glade;
Her smiles have vanished and her sweet songs flown
Flitting like the dreams that have cheered us and gone.
Now the nodding wild flow'rs may wither on the shore,
While her gentle fingers will cull them no more;
(CHORUS)
filename[ JEANBRWN
SW
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And the Traditional Ballad Index entry:
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair DESCRIPTION: "I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair, Borne, like a vapor, on a summer's air." The singer praises her voice, her "day-dawn smile," etc., but sadly concludes, that he is "never more to find her where the bright waters flow."
AUTHOR: Stephen C. Foster
EARLIEST DATE: 1854 (sheet music by Firth, Pond & Co.)
KEYWORDS: love separation nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Fireside, p. 100, "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 249, "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" (1 text)
Emerson, p. 53, "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 311-312, "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair"
DT, JEANBRWN
Roud #V288
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I Dream of Jeanie
NOTES [410 words]: Jeanie was Foster's wife, Jane McDowell Foster. Had she known the uses to which her image would be put (from hair advertisements in the 1860s to idiotic television shows a century later), I can only think she would have filed for pre-emptive divorce. (As it was, the marriage was deeply troubled.)
Legman regards "Jeanie" as an adaption (he calls it plagiarism) of "To Daunton Me," found in the Scots Musical Museum (#182). But Legman often saw kinship that others do not see; Fuld says there is "no similarity between the two songs," and I have to agree that I see no points of contact between either the text or the tune. According to Howard, p. 241, if Foster was plagiarizing anyone, it was himself; the first part of the tune of "Jeanie" is quite close to "Willie We Have Missed You," which Foster (based on his working notebook) had written slightly earlier. It appears from the notebook that Foster wrote "Jeanie" while he and his wife were separated (although Morneweck, p. 451, claims it comes from one of their reconciliations), and it seems not unlikely that he wrote it because he missed her. Howard comments that it is "one of Stephen's very few successful love songs"; otherwise, Howard suggests, Foster didn't write very well about love.
Spaeth, p. 116, says of this song, "Jeanie is the song that America discovered during those incredibly dull months when radio decided that it could get along without copyrighted music. Before that it had been considered a choice bit of rather obscure Fosteriana."
TaylorEtAl, p. 111, points out that many Foster songs have a heroine whose name was a variation on Jeanie: this song, "Little Jenny Dow," "Jenny's Coming O'er the Green," "Jenny June." Could all these be tributes to Foster's wife? It wouldn't surprise me; in "Little Jenny Dow," even the last name is reminiscent of Jane's family name McDowell.
Morneweck, pp. 451-452, says that Morrison Foster, Stephen's brother, never used the name "Jeanie" of the song. "It was always 'Jennie with the Light Brown Hair,' and Jennie you will find in Stephen Foster's original manuscript book. Jane was not called Jeanie by her family, but was often addressed by the affectionate diminutive, Jennie. It is more likely that the publishers suggested to Stephen that he change it to the more euphonious and romantic Jeanie, as more appealing to public taste. But Jennie it was to Stephen, and Jennie it was to his brother Mit [i.e. Morrison]."- RBW
Bibliography - Howard: John Tasker Howard, Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour, 1934 (I use the 1939 Tudor Publishing edition)
- Morneweck: Evelyn Foster Morneweck (Stephen Foster's niece), Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1944
- Spaeth: Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, Random House, 1948
- TaylorEtAl: Deems Taylor et al, A Treasury of Stephen Foster, Random House, 1946
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File: FSWB249
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