Stephen Foster is a composer of true Americana. His songbook is filled with compositions known by Americans of all walks of life – songs like “Oh! Susanna,” “Camptown Races,” and “Beautiful Dreamer.”
This week, I’ve arranged Foster’s “Hard Times, Come Again No More” for the Duo Chronicles project. Although not as well-known as the songs I mentioned above, it’s still a very common song, especially in the folk circles. For example, my favorite version was performed by James Taylor with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor.
For the Duo Chronicles version, I stretched the harmony, but not so much that the song is hidden – it’s just presented in a different light. I also tried to stay true to the lyrics and mood of the song, which transitions between hopeful and dark imagery. Here are Foster’s original lyrics:
- Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
- While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
- There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
- Oh Hard times come again no more.
- Chorus:
- Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
- Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
- Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
- Oh hard times come again no more.
- While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
- There are frail forms fainting at the door;
- Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
- Oh hard times come again no more.
- (Chorus)
- There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
- With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:
- Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day,
- Oh hard times come again no more.
- (Chorus)
- Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
- Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
- Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
- Oh hard times come again no more.
This is our first departure from original material in the project besides the holiday songs – we’ll be back to original compositions next week.