The Pax Plena Song of the Week will doubtless be a familiar one in the great American songbook. Written by composer Stephen C. Coster in 1851, (Old Folks at Home) or Swanee River has long been a staple of American music.

Though the melody itself has been criticized for its supposedly racist undertones, the lyrics actually tell the story of world traveller long displaced from his home. Such a tale would be fairly innocuous, but for the African-American vernacular incorporated into the lyrics, and the use of the word “darkie,” presumably in reference to other Blacks in the chorus. As an example of Foster’s use of the African-American vernacular, in the original score, Foster used the words “ribber,” “ebber,” and “mudder,” to refer to the words river, ever, and mother respectively. While the move is decidedly politically incorrect, there really isn’t anything inherently racist, or even offensive about the song. In fact, even the use of the word ‘darkie’ can arguably be interpreted as an paean to inclusiveness – particularly when Foster could have used much more loaded “N-word.” As the platitude goes, context is crucial.

Controversy aside, what makes the song interesting is the soaring story the lyrics tell through Foster’s music. The song follows the plight of a wanderer who has travelled far away from home, only to realize that the grass isn’t necessarily greener elsewhere. As the music swells, the bard yearns for home, and the old folks, and brighter days past.

In truth, I suppose I hear some of my own thoughts when I listen to the piece. In many ways, having been removed from Cotton County, Oklahoma nearly ten years come September, I too feel a bit as if I have been ‘up and down the whole creation’ sadly roaming, longing for home all the while. What Foster manages to do is capture these sentiments in pithy language, setting them against one of the most emotional scores in music history.

And really that’s what makes a musical selection great: the best renditions take our unspoken thoughts and put them to a melody that captures our feelings at a particular moment in time. Listening to the song, one can nigh feel tears welling up from the deep within as the singer longs for sunny days spent with siblings, and with a mother that departed this life long ago. Though the lyrics are the vehicle for delivery, the emotional punch is packed through foster’s arrangement.

With that, please enjoy, the Pax Plena Song of the Week, Swanee River. Lyrics and music appear below, and a series of performances of the piece follow.

Bing Crosby is always the gold standard for any musical performance. Naturally, his rendition of Swanee River from the Kraft Music Hall Shows of the 1930s and 40s is stellar.

Aside from Crosby, the first notable performance of the song is actually an improvisational piece called the “Swanee River Boogie” performed by Albert Ammons. Ammons’s fingers tickle the ivories in a way that only a jazz musician can.

A second performance of the song is performed by Luca Sestak, a German teenager, and a certifiable, piano prodigy. Sestak’s performance is enough to make yours truly wish I were good at something – viz., anything.

One final, notable performance of Swanee River comes from the Alvin and the Chipmunks Show from the 1980s and 1990s. The trio perform a riff on the old minstrel performances of the 1850s, with Dave Seville playing the straight-laced interlocutor, and the Chipmunks playing a tripartite amalgam of Tambo and Bones.

This isn’t to say the clip is politically correct – in fact, it’s almost difficult to fathom any cartoon today producing similar programming – but the jokes are wonderfully terrible.

For example:

Dave: Good evening, Gentlemen. How are you feeling this evening?

Alvin: How am I feeling, Mr. Interlocutor?

Dave: That’s right, Alvin, how are you feeling?

Alvin: With my fingers, Mr. Interlocutor.

Chipmunks: Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.

The Pax Plena Song of the Week reminds me of a steamy New Hampshire summer, and Fourth-of-Julys past spent along the Charles River in Boston. Released in 2003, Brad Paisley’s Make a Mistake was an instant favorite of mine the momenet I heard its ornate guitar work, and upbeat lyrics, lo so many years ago.

The tune is simple and easily sung, like most Brad Paisley tunes. But in many ways it’s exactly this simplicity of country music that makes it at all interesting.

Rant: Let’s face it, if you want to listen to generic pop music all you need to do is pirate the latest Justin Bieber album, or the musical excrement we call Lady Gaga. I say ‘pirate’ because if your music taste is poor enough to actually pay for it, well, I can’t help you and your head will probably explode once you click video below and listen to real music. Suffice it to say, given how country music is the veritable, polar opposite of everything “pop” and generic, it’s little surprise that yours truly gravitates towards it – not unlike Charlie Sheen gravitating toward a train wreck. Moths to a flame, as they say.

Anyway, the lyrics of the tune tell a simple story of a boy urging a girl he likes to “make a mistake” with him. It’s a bit cliché admittedly, but so is a lot of what we enjoy about relationships. We’ve all seen the movie where the lovelorn girl tells her beau their romance cannot be because it would surely be a mistake. Paisley’s song is the beau’s rebuttal.

Rescuing the song, perhaps from itself, is Paisley’s nothing less than amazing handiwork on the guitar. The strumming and picking on both the melody and the chorus are stellar. Until hearing this song, I honestly did not comprehend how fast the human finger can move. I thought my 10-words-per-minute typing was impressive.

At any rate, there’s only so much that I can say on behalf of a song that is eminently qualified to speak for itself. With that, please enjoy the extended edition of Make a Mistake, featuring an extra three minutes of Brad Paisley making the guitar his bitch.

Make a Mistake
By Brad Paisley

You over think things
You say what if we’re not meant to be
Well you know what so what
Make a mistake with me

Nobody goes through this life and does
Everything perfectly
We’re all gonna fail so you might as well
Make a mistake with me

Sometimes baby when we take
A chance that has this much at stake
We look back and in hindsight
What seemed wrong looks more like right

So I say worst case we’ll be left with
Lots of good memories
This chance we have well it’s worth that 
So make a mistake with me

I’m tellin’ you the right thing to do
Is make a mistake
Make a mistake
Make a mistake with me

The Pax Plena Song of the Week became an instant favorite when I heard it while watching the 1942 Hollywood classic, Road to Morocco. By the by, Road to Morocco has been called the most stereotypical film ever to come out of Hollywood. This, of course, makes it a must-see film for anyone with a sense of humor.

Sung by the greatest singer that ever lived, Bing Crosby’s Ain’t Got a Dime to My Name is a whimsical musing on the things that are important in life. And despite grappling with fairly weighty subject matter, the song is wonderfully light and fun.

In the film, Crosby’s character Jeff Peters has just sold his cousin “Turkey” Jackson (Bob Hope) into slavery. Having been properly chastised by his long-dead aunt (also played by Bob Hope), Bing walks the streets of the nameless Moroccan city looking for his cousin. I won’t spoil the ending, but slavery has been mighty kind to Turkey.

Like any cousin with the voice of an angel, Jeff Peters begins to sing Turkey’s favorite song in order to draw Turkey’s attention, and facilitate his rescue. Enter the song of the week.

The genius of the Jimmy Van Heusen-arranged piece is that it combines Crosby as the lone soloist with an airy jazz assortment typical of the era’s big band music. This gives the song a smooth, swing feel that immediately focuses the ear on Crosby’s singing. From there, the performance is pretty much effortless, despite the silly dance number Bing performs in the middle of the song.

The piece itself has a balanced mix of brass and wind instruments, that are accented nicely by an up-tempo percussion line. The gem of the song is brief jazz harp solo after the fourth stanza.

The lyrics, written by Johnny Burke, tell the story of an impecunious person who ‘ain’t got a dime’ to his name. But rather than sinking into the depths of despair, the man glibly replies, “ho, hum.”

The incongruity of the response makes the song especially fantastic. For most, money will always be a worry of sorts. But the song reminds listeners that a ‘shady ole tree’ can be as tremendous a luxury as ‘shirts made of silk.’ The point is as well taken now as it was then. The roots of our consumer culture, apparently, run quite deep.

True to form, the song concludes with the simple observation that the singer will ‘never get rich.’ This prompts the greatest line of ho hums in the entire song.

Please, enjoy the Pax Plena song of the week, Ain’t Got a Dime to My Name (Ho Hum) as performed by Bing Crosby.