Carry Me back
to Old Virginny
Written by James
Bland
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There's where the cotton and the
corn and tatoes grow,
There's where the birds warble
sweet in the springtime,
There's where the old darke'ys
heart am long'd to go,
There's where I labored so hard
for old massa,
Day after day in the field of
yellow corn,
No place on earth do I love more
sincerely
Than old Virginny, the state
where I was born.
CHORUS
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There's where the cotton and the
corn and tatoes grow,
There's where the birds warble
sweet in the springtime,
There's where this old darkey's
heart am long'd to go.
Carry me back to old Virginny,
There let me live 'till I wither
and decay,
Long by the old Dismal Swamp
have I wandered,
There's where this old darke'ys
life will pass away.
Massa and missis have long gone
before me,
Soon we will meet on that bright
and golden shore,
There we'll be happy and free
from all sorrow,
There's where we'll meet and
we'll never part no more.
On Jan 28, 1997 the Virginia Senate
voted 24 -15 to designate Carry Me
Back as state song "emeritus" and
directed a study committee to come
up with a new state song.
The ACIR intends to make a final
selection in the contest and a
recommendation to the General
Assembly and the Governor for the
2001 General Assembly session.
Carry Me back to Old Virginny was
written by an African American minstrel, James
Bland, in the last century and has been
Virginia's state song since 1940State Songs of the United States: An Annotated Anthology
~ William E Studwell (Author), Bruce R Schueneman (Author)