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Men's Racing Tee, SkirtChaser Race Collection, Running Race Tee skirtsports.com |
"Camptown Races", sometimes referred to as "Camptown Ladies", is a comic song in broad, stereotyped African American "dialect". It was written in 1850 by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), known as the "father of American music", who was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century. The song's official title was "Gwine to Run All Night", and it is also known as "De Camptown Races".
[edit] History"Campton Races" was published in 1850 in Foster's Plantation Melodies (Baltimore: F. D. Benteen; New Orleans: W. T. Mayo, 1850). The Camptown of Foster's own experience was in Pennsylvania, but a camptown, or tent city, was a temporary workingmen's accommodation familiar in many parts of the United States, especially along the rapidly expanding railroad network. The rag-tag mix of horses that are racing, and the disorder of the racing conditions at the ramshackle camptown track, provide the fun, with the usual unspoken undercurrent of superiority among the entertained hearers. Camptown, Pennsylvania hosts an annual 10K cross country foot race called Camptown Races. It's held the first weekend in September and coincides with the community's annual Old Home Day celebration. [edit] Lyrics
[edit] Popular cultureThe song has made countless appearances in popular media. In the film Blazing Saddles, the stereotypes are reversed when a group of white men sing the song in the traditional way, and the black protagonist, Bart (Cleavon Little), pronounces the song's title in standard English and claims not to know it. The main character in the movie The Stepfather and its sequel whistles to the tune of the song. In Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies cartoon series, the character Foghorn Leghorn would hum if not sing variations of this song during so many of his appearances it almost seemed to be his theme. He would typically be mid-song whenever his character first shows up on the screen. In the 1938 film Holiday, with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, one scene features Hepburn, Edward Everett Horton, Jean Dixon and Lew Ayres singing this song together in the "playroom" of a Fifth Avenue mansion. In the Fawlty Towers episode "Communication Problems" when Basil has won some money on the horse, he stands in the kitchen singing it and when Sybil comes in quickly ends the song with "I did it my way..." and complains that he never really liked Sinatra. The song can be briefly heard in the film Night at the Museum. After dark, when all the museum's relics have come to life, Larry, the night watchman, hears the miniatures inhabiting the American West diorama singing the song. [edit] References[edit] External links
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