#that song is soooo racist but I learned it in a cello positions book so I didn't know the lyrics or context for YEARS after I learned it

[natugood]

I have incomprehensible thoughts rn about how many classic American folk songs are kinda fucked up (and many are "sanitized" for modern listening to be less fucked up), and it's wild that we just, teach these songs to children without any context or anything? like, clementine is about a miner's daughter DROWNING TO DEATH as he watches helplessly? Old folks at home is a fucking RACIST AF ass song written by a white dude in the perspective of a slave who has been freed who misses his life on a plantation? when John Henry was sang by miners it often had ad-libbed, graphic lyrics about having sex with women at the end of the work day (as a way to motivate themselves and get them through the hell that was mining in the 1800s), and a lot of our modern versions are just super sanitized? like I get its hard to explain a lot of that shit to kids but like, its often never revisited and those songs are just left as sanitized, incoherent childhood introductions to America when they actually all have great amounts of value and history when put into context!!