Nelly was a Lady
(1849)- Music by Stephen Foster
- Text by Stephen Foster
"Nelly was a Lady" was a milestone in Stephen Foster's development...By merging the minstrel ditty with the parlour ballad, he not only overcame and resolved some of his own musical ambivalence and conflict--the push-pull between respectability and rebellion, the bourgeois and the bawdy--he also reconciled black and white, rescuing blackface from the overt rascism that had characterized it from the outset."
--Christie Finn
Nelly was a Lady
Down on the Mississippi floating,
Long time I travel on the way.
All night the cottonwood a-toting,
Sing for my true love all the day.
Now I’m unhappy, and I’m weeping,
Can’t tote the cottonwood no more;
Last night, while Nelly was a-sleeping,
Death came a-knocking at the door.
Nelly was a lady.
Last night, she died.
Toll the bell for lovely Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.
When I saw my Nelly in the morning,
Smile till she opened up her eyes,
Seemed like the light of day a-dawning,
Just ‘fore the sun begin to rise.
Down in the meadow, ‘mong the clover,
Walk with my Nelly by my side;
Now all them happy days are over,
Farwell, my dark Virginny bride.
Nelly was a lady.
Last night, she died.
Toll the bell for lovely Nell,
My dark Virginny bride.
RELATED INFORMATION
- Library of Congress: Music for a Nation "Nelly Was a Lady"
- Google Books: The Parlor Song in America
- Google Books: Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the rise of American popular culture (Ken Emerson)
- Google Books: "Nelly Was a Lady" in The World's Best Music
- Amazon: Stephen Foster Song Book (Dover Edition), includes "Nelly was a Lady"
