Yeah... Stephen Foster's works and words are a whole can of worms, in hindsight. At what point does "fair for his time" become not fair enough? The only song of his I have heard sung in public is "Hard Times Come Again No More." Then, too, snippets of "Camptown Races" and "Oh Susannah" used to get sung in my childhood, mostly just the chorus and folk-processed enough to be apparently de-minstrelized. I think it would not be far wrong to say love of Stephen Foster songs would be one of the whitest manifestations of current white American culture.

"Sing That Stephen Foster Song" puzzles, or troubles, me. It's a beautiful song, a great evocation of lost family togetherness, but why Stephen Foster? Perhaps it was the author's own family tradition when she wrote it back in the 1980s, nothing more than that. But there's a whole "ethos" attached to Foster's work as you say, which can't help coloring this song, coloring its evocation of "family."

I can't sing Bob Coltman's "Before They Close the Minstrel Show," either, excellent song though it is.