My Old Kentucky Home

The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home.....The musicology doctoral seminar on Stephen Foster, left Lexington, KY on a balmy beautiful spring day. The air was soft as silk, the red bud trees exploded in magenta hues, the crabapples and pears displayed pristine white pyrotechnics. We were headed for the quaint hamlet of Bardstown and our destination was the Stephen Foster State Shrine--My Old Kentucky Home State Park. As we parked, the siren song of the chimes was like sonic incense wafting about. The melodic essence of Foster's well-beloved melodies were an incorporeal presence that guided us to the statue of Foster--an action pose with his flute and his music, as though he were caught in the act of receiving the melody for My Old Kentucky Home from a divine muse.

FosterStatue
Originally uploaded by Ron Pen.

The house, Federal Hill, the Rowan House, the "My Old Kentucky Home" house beckoned at the crest of the hill. The day was scented with floral delights and a constant lacy fall of blossoms gently fell like warm snow. At the door of the house, two hoop skirted women guided us into the newly refurbished home. Among the first words were: "We believe Stephen Foster visited here at least one time." The tour of the home was accompanied by our companion and colleague, Professor Deane Root, the curator of Foster Hall in Pittsburgh, the editor of the complete Foster Collection, and the director of the Music Department at the University of Pittsburgh. This was a return to his old Kentucky home, since Deane had graduated from Lafayette High School in Lexington and had visited the Foster Shrine at age 17 before setting forth in the world. We were in the presence of one who knew Foster as no one else does today.

A lazy amble through the grounds and several photographs later, we left to go our several ways with the strains of the carillon gently ushering us on our way....So myth and history and fact and fancy come together. This home, this state park, this shrine, all conspire effectively to create the illusion of a time that never was and an historical event that never took place. Foster never visited the site, but that is merely a small historical infelicity. He SHOULD have visited and he SHOULD have written the song based on this lovely home. The "little cabin floor" COULD have been the slave cabins behind Federal Hill that no longer exist.

Sometimes the force of myth creates more truth than the truth itself. The Foster legend, the story of the South, of olde Kentucky is encoded in our commonwelath's commemorative quarter--it features My Old Kentucky Home and a horse. The state song, My Old Kentucky Home is sung annually at the Kentucky Derby--another symbol of a past that never was but that should have been. Kentucky, conveniently, redefined itself as a Southern state following the Civil War.

This is not just ancient history, the power of Foster's music can still affect us. Debates are currently taking place about another Foster state song--Old Folks at Home. In Florida, the Foster Shrine, the Swanee River are an endangered species as the Governor refused to have the state song played at his inauguration and the legislature is considering eliminating it as the state song. Music is clearly not just entertainment--it is a living symbol, it is a forum for the negotiation of ideas, and it is a political statement. Foster may have died in 1864, but his words and his melodies, and his conception of America are still very much contemporary companions even today in 2007.

And so now, my Old Kentucky Home, Good night.