"Gwine to Run All Night, or
De Camptown Races"
Song by Christy's Minstrels
PublishedFebruary 1850
GenreMinstrel show
Songwriter(s)Stephen Foster

"Gwine to Run All Night, or De Camptown Races" (popularly known simply as "Camptown Races") is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864). (Playⓘ[1]) It was published in February 1850 by F. D. Benteen of Baltimore, Maryland, and Benteen published a different version with guitar accompaniment in 1852 under the title "The Celebrated Ethiopian Song/Camptown Races". The song quickly entered the realm of popular Americana. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1869) quotes the melody in his virtuoso piano work Grotesque Fantasie, the Banjo, op. 15 published in 1855.[2] In 1909, composer Charles Ives incorporated the tune and other vernacular American melodies into his orchestral Symphony No. 2.[3][4]

First stanza

Wikisource has the complete original lyrics to:

Camptown ladies sing dis song, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
Camptown race-track five miles long, Oh, doo-dah day!
I come down dah with my hat caved in, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
I go back home with a pocketful of tin, Oh, doo-dah day!

Goin' to run all night,
Goin' to run all day!
I'll bet my money on de bob-tail nag,
Somebody bet on the bay.

Reception

"Camptown Races" was introduced by the Christy's Minstrels in 1850

Richard Jackson was curator[5] of the Americana Collection at New York Public Library; he writes:

Foster quite specifically tailored the song for use on the minstrel stage. He composed it as a piece for solo voice with group interjections and refrain ... his dialect verses have all the wild exaggeration and rough charm of folk tale as well as some of his most vivid imagery ... Together with "Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races" is one of the gems of the minstrel era."[6][7][8]

In The Americana Song Reader, William Emmett Studwell writes that the song was introduced by the Christy Minstrels, noting that Foster's "nonsense lyrics are much of the charm of this bouncy and enduring bit of Americana", and the song was a big hit with minstrel troupes throughout the country. Foster's music was used for derivatives that include "Banks of the Sacramento", "A Capital Ship" (1875), and a pro-Lincoln parody introduced during the 1860 presidential campaign.[9]

Richard Crawford observes in America's Musical Life that the song resembles Dan Emmett's "Old Dan Tucker", and he suggests that Foster used Emmett's piece as a model. Both songs feature contrast between a high instrumental register with a low vocal one, comic exaggeration, hyperbole, verse and refrain, call and response, and syncopation. However, Foster's melody is "jaunty and tuneful" while Emmett's is "driven and aggressive". Crawford points out that the differences in the two songs represent two different musical styles, as well as a shift in minstrelsy from the rough spirit and "muscular, unlyrical music" of the 1840s, to a more genteel spirit and lyricism with an expanding repertoire that included sad songs, sentimental and love songs, and parodies of opera. Crawford explains that, by mid-century, the "noisy, impromptu entertainments" characteristic of Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels were passé and the minstrel stage was changing to a "restrained and balanced kind of spectacle".[10]

Keystone Marker for Camptown, 4.2 miles north of Wyalusing, Pennsylvania[11][12]

Historians cite the village of Camptown, Pennsylvania as the basis for the song, located in the mountains of northeast Pennsylvania. The races were resumed nearby in 1965 as a footrace, without horses. The Pennsylvania Historical Society confirmed that Foster traveled through the small town and afterwards wrote the song. The Bradford County Historical Society documents Foster attending school in nearby Towanda and Athens in 1840 and 1841. The schools were located 5 miles (8 km) from the racetrack. The current annual running of the Camptown Races was replaced by a 6.2-mile (10 km) track covering rough lumbering trails.[13]

The song was the impetus for renaming Camptown, a village of Clinton Township, Essex County, New Jersey. When the new ballad was published in 1850, some residents of the village were mortified to be associated with the bawdiness in song. The wife of the local postmaster suggested Irvington, to commemorate writer Washington Irving, which was adopted in 1852.[14]

Recordings

In one of the most widely familiar uses of "Camptown Races" in popular culture, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn frequently hums the tune to himself (breaking into song only for the "Doo-Dah" refrain) in most of the 28 cartoons the character appears in, produced between 1946 and 1963. Occasionally, he would also sing his own lyrics if they were related to what he was doing at the moment. Leghorn was not based on a minstrel character, but on Kenny Delmar's popular radio character, the overbearing Southerner Senator Claghorn.[15]

The song was revived on a number of occasions in the twentieth century with recordings by Bing Crosby (recorded December 9, 1940),[16] Johnny Mercer (1945),[17] Al Jolson (recorded July 17, 1950),[18] Julie London (included in her album Swing Me an Old Song – 1959), and Frankie Laine (included in his album Deuces Wild – 1961).[19]

Country music singer Kenny Rogers recorded the song in 1970 with his group, The First Edition, on their album Tell It All Brother under the title of "Camptown Ladies".

Film

Television

  • 1948 Screen Songs appears in the episode "Camptown Races." The episode depicts a cartoon blackface minstrel show with anthropomorphic animals who sing an altered version of the song.
  • 1955–1975 Gunsmoke (TV series) background jingle playing in several episodes on the player piano inside the Long Branch saloon
  • 1962 Top Cat sung by the gang to divert Officer Dibble's attention.
  • 1996 Lisa the Iconoclast sung by Chief Wiggum
  • 2000 Disney's Recess in episode "Old Folks Home" (S4E23A), Mikey sings this song
  • 2011 Toy Story Toons in Episode 2, "Small Fry", a small version of Buzz Lightyear sings an altered version of the song.
  • 2012 Dance Like Nobody's Watching (30 Rock) (S6E1) sung by a contestant on the fictional show America's Kidz Got Singing during the final scene of the episode
  • 2013 South Park Season 17, Episode 10 "The Hobbit", Butters briefly sings a verse while at his locker.
  • Michael Scott sings this in season 5, episode 9 of The Office.
  • In Camp Lazlo, Camp Kidney's Bean Scout Chorus sings it, burping some of the lyrics. Lazlo has trouble with his part, burping "bay".
  • In Brickleberry, it was sung by Ethel Anderson while dressed in blackface in season 2, episode 7, "My Way or the Highway".
  • In Supernatural season 13, Episode 21, Lucifer sings the song to Rowena in order to anger her.

References

  1. ↑ Humphries, Carl (2010). The Piano Improvisation Handbook, p. 199. ISBN 978-0-87930-977-0.
  2. ↑ New York: William Hall & son, c1855
  3. ↑ https://performingarts.georgetown.edu/Charles-Ives-America Archived 2018-10-29 at the Wayback Machine Georgetown University:"Charles Ives's America"
  4. ↑ J. Peter Burkholder, '"Quotation" and Paraphrase in Ives' Second Symphony' Archived 2018-10-29 at the Wayback Machine, 19th Century Music, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 3–25. [accessed 26 July 2013]
  5. ↑ "A Century of Music at The New York Public Library". The New York Public Library. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  6. ↑ Richard Jackson (ed.). 1974. Stephen Foster Song Book: original sheet music of 40 songs. Courier Dover Publications. p. 174.
  7. ↑ "Stephen Foster Song Book". store.doverpublications.com. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  8. ↑ Foster, Stephen Collins; Jackson, Richard (7 September 1974). Stephen Foster Song Book: Original Sheet Music of 40 Songs. Courier Corporation. ISBN 9780486230481. Archived from the original on 30 October 2023. Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ William Emmett Studwell. The Americana Song Reader. Psychology Press. p. 63.
  10. ↑ Richard Crawford. 2001. America's Musical Life: a history. W. W. Norton. pp. 210–11.
  11. ↑ "Camptown Races Historical Marker". WITF-TV and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
  12. ↑ "Bradford County Historical Society". www.bradfordhistory.com. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  13. ↑ "Another 'Doo-dah-day' in Camptown". upi.com. 10 September 1982. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  14. ↑ Siegel, Alan A. "History of Irvington". Township of Irvingon. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  15. ↑ ""It's a Joke, Son!"", AFI Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States 1, University of California Press, 1971, p. 1190, ISBN 9780520215214
  16. ↑ "A Bing Crosby Discography". BING magazine. International Club Crosby. Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved August 5, 2017.
  17. ↑ "Johnny Mercer And The Pied Pipers With Paul Weston And His Orchestra – Surprise Party / Camptown Races". Discogs. October 1945. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  18. ↑ "Al Jolson Society Official Website". www.jolson.org. Archived from the original on 23 October 2008. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  19. ↑ "Frankie Laine – Deuces Wild". Discogs. 1962. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  20. ↑ Mason, Mark (2005). Bluffer's Guide To Football. Oval Projects Ltd. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-903096-49-9.
  21. ↑ "Holiday (1938)". Archived from the original on 7 September 2019. Retrieved 7 September 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
  22. ↑ "Passion (1999)". Archived from the original on 25 March 2018. Retrieved 6 October 2018 – via www.imdb.com.
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