[NOTE: This Whither Zither was written and published prior to the occurance of Hurricane Katrina. Only coincidentally does it mention areas in the vicinity of this ongoing tragedy.]

Introductory Oh Susanna

For a number of years, I have had in one of my deeper piles two of my dad's old tenor (4-string) banjos. One is a kinda plain Gibson and the other a kinda fancy Weymann. A nephew is now plinking the former, and I just shipped the latter to my sister Susannah in Ithaca.

Now, you can't send a banjo to a Susannah without thinking of Stephen Foster and Oh Susanna. At least I can't. That song has always haunted me. Maybe it's because I do have childhood memories of Pop singing it while playing his Weymann. Maybe it's because it's about Susanna, and mentions I'm going to Louisiana, and my sister Susannah (with an h) was born in Louisiana. Maybe it's just because it has a great melody and a marvelous combo of nonsense and tenderness in what I consider to be fairly perfect balance. But I've always thought it also contains a few enchanting convolutions.

Right off the bat, the first verse brings up an odd question: Where is the ostensible singer -- the "narrator" -- located as he sings this song (and I'm just assuming the narrator is a male). He sings: I come from Alabama, With my banjo on my knee/I'm going to Louisiana, My true love for to see. This suggests that he is in transit, having come from Alabama but not yet in Louisiana. The state between Louisiana and Alabama is Mississippi, so, assuming he's making something of a beeline from where he was to where he's going, Mississippi is where the narrator must be located. To make things more specific, a number of lines later he says, I'm coming from the South. Since much of Alabama is actually north of a line drawn from across the top of Louisiana, he must be coming from somewhere in the southern part of the state. Maybe Mobile, which is in the Alabama panhandle that dips down next to the Florida panhandle and gives Alabama a wee bit of oceanfront property. And he must have been en route from there to a northern part of Louisiana. Shreveport, maybe (and coincidentally, 50 miles from my sister's birthplace). According to Mapquest, this is a 462 mile journey, so it's not unreasonable to think the narrator stopped for breakfast (buckwheat cakes?) in some Mississippi greasy spoon. Maybe the long lost verse is, Now I may not have much moola, But I'm not exactly broke / For I've stopped in Pascagoula, for a buckwheat cake and coke. Maybe that's where his subconscious got the buckwheat cakes idea for his dream.

So here he sits in Pascagoula. But what is he saying, and to whom? The first four lines, quoted above, are obviously NOT being sung TO Susanna, even in his mind, but to someone else. Maybe the Pascagoula griddle flipper, who has asked, "Where you from son? Where you goin? Whatever for? And what's that you got on your knee?"

The next nonsense lines may be taken as being sung "to" Susanna OR to the griddle flipper or whomever, until its sudden surprising last line, Susanna, don't you cry. Now he's singing right to Susanna, even if just in his mind. This verse, which leads into the odd, odd, chorus, is that bunch of goofiness everybody knows: It rained all night, The day I left / The weather it was dry. The sun so hot, I froze to death / Susanna, don't you cry. Then the chorus: Oh, Susanna, Oh don't you cry for me/ For I come from Alabama, With my banjo on my knee.

That's where the song takes on some interesting psychological pizazz, in my interpretation. Suddenly he's singing to Susanna, saying Susanna don't you cry, then immediately following this line with the even stronger Oh, Susanna! Oh don't you cry for me! And by this, I believe he means to say "don't you cry in my stead" or "don't you cry for me by proxy." In other words, don't assume my sorrows, For I come from Alabama, with a banjo on my knee. Don't make yourself sad by over-identifying with my sorrows, because I'm not really that sad, after all, here I come bouncing up from Alabama, happily plucking the banjo. The whole nonsense verse I believe to be the narrator's trying to impress upon his true love that she shouldn't feel his sorrow because look! I'm making fun of my own troubles! Sun so hot, froze to death! Ha ha! Cheer up! Though of course he may have meant simply: "Don't cry out of loneliness for me, because I'm on my way." But not according to my theory. Why in the world else would he say, "Susanna, don't cry for me, I'm playing the banjo," if he wasn't concerned that she was channeling what she thought was his sorrow?

The second two-part verse continues in the way the first two-part verse was written, being sung to the griddle flipper until the last line, which because of repetition, now becomes the refrain: Susanna don't you cry. Now this verse, interestingly, is written as a dream. A very particular dream, which paints a picture more real than the nonsense of the second part of verse one. Interesting that the dream has more verisimilitude than the whole rest of the song: I had a dream the other night, When everything was still / I thought I saw Susanna, A-coming down the hill. The buckwheat cake was in her mouth, The tear was in her eye / Says I, I'm coming from the south, Susanna, don't you cry

In this dream, the narrator sees his true love coming down a hill toward him (I say "toward him" because she's said to be "coming" down the hill, not "going" or even just "walking" down the hill) eating a buckwheat cake (pancake) and crying. Wow, what an image of sorrow! The narrator can't possibly have had this dream without feeling huge pangs of sorrow for the poor darling as she approached. So now we have HIM feeling sorry for HER because she's feeling so sorry for HIM that she's crying his tears into her breakfast! Wow!

On the other hand, there aren't any other common words that rhyme with "south" other than "mouth". If all of this was nothing more than an excercise based on rhyme problems (hence Louisiana/Alabama) then I take it all back. But if THAT'S true, then I wonder if Foster came up with "south" first, which throws in that whole odd geographic exercise, or "mouth" first, which gets us back to the heartbreaking hillside of tears and pancakes. After all, he didn't HAVE to use either word. I'm betting the ideas came first, then the rhymes. One way or another, for me Oh Susanna will always be right up there with Barges and Girl From Ipanema as a provocative mystery of a song.