Ol Man River Sheet Music Frank Sinatra

Lyrics & Info Ol Man River Frank Sinatra

Ol Man River

[Elongated Intro:]
Here we all work ‘long the Mississippi
Here we all work while the white folk play
Pullin’ them boats from the dawn till sunset
Gettin’ no rest till the judgment day

Don’t look up and don’t look down
Ya don’t dast make the white boss frown
Bend your knees and bow your head
And pull that rope until you’re dead

Let me go ‘way from the Mississippi
Let me go ‘way from the white man boss
Show me that stream called the River Jordan
That’s the old stream that I long to cross
[End Of Intro]

Ol’ Man River, that Ol’ Man River
He must know somepin’, but he don’t say nothin’

He just keeps rollin’, he keeps on rollin’ along

He don’t plant taters, and he don’t plant cotton
And them what plants ’em is soon forgotten
But Ol’ Man River, jest keeps rollin’ along

You and me, we sweat and strain
Bodies all achin’ and wracked with pain
Tote that barge and lift that bale
Ya get a little drunk and ya lands in ja-ail

I gets weary and so sick of tryin’
I’m tired of livin’, but I’m feared of dyin’
And Ol’ Man River, he just keeps rollin’ along

[final 2 notes linger for 11 seconds]

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“Ol Man River’” (music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II) is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that contrasts the struggles and hardships of African Americans with the endless, uncaring flow of theMississippi River. It is sung from the point of view of a black stevedore on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show. The song is meant to be performed in a slow tempo, it is sung complete once in the musical’s lengthy first scene by the stevedore “Joe” who travels with the boat, and, in the stage version, is heard four more times in brief reprises. Joe serves as a sort of musical one-man Greek chorus, and the song, when reprised, comments on the action, as if saying, “This has happened, but the river keeps rolling on anyway.”


**The lines “Niggers all work on de Mississippi, Niggers all work
while de white folks play” were sung in the original 1927 Broadway
Show. They were changed for the 1936 film version to “Darkies all
work on de Mississippi, Darkies all work while de white folks play”.
By the time of the 1946 Broadway revival, the lines had changed again
to “Colored folks work on de Mississippi, Colored folks work while de
white folks play”. And soon after, in the film “Till the Clouds Roll
By”, they had become “Here we all work on de Mississippi, Here we all
work while de white folks play”.
 

Frank Sinatra  Sheet Music
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