"The Old Home Aint What It Used to Be" (1872)
(companion song to
"The Old Folks at Home" [1851, by Stephen Collins Foster]
as sung by the original Georgia Minstrels)
Words and Music by Charles A. White

[Source: pages 168-169 from
"Minstrel Songs, Old and New" (1883)]

1.
Oh, the old home aint what is used to be,
The banjo and fiddle has gone,
And no more you hear the darkies singing,
Among the sugarcane and corn;
Great changes have come to the poor colored man,
But this change makes him sad and forlorn,
Fow no more we hear the darkies singing
Among the sugarcane and corn.

CHORUS 2 times
No, the old home aint what it used to be,
The change makes me sad and forlorn,
For no more we hear the darkies singing,
Among the sugarcane and corn.

2.
In the fields I've worked when I tho't 'twas hard,
But night bro't its pleasures and rest,
In the old house down by the river side,
The place of all the world's the best;
Oh, where are the children that once used to play
In the lane by the old cabin door?
They are scattered now, and o'er the world they roam,
The old man ne'er will see them more.

(CHORUS)

3.
Now the old man would rather liv'd and died,
In the home where his children were born,
But when freedom came to the colored man,
He left the cotton field and corn;
This old man has liv'd out his three score and ten,
And he'll soon have to lay down and die,
Yet he hopes to go unto a better land,
So now, old cabin home, good bye.

(CHORUS)