My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song

It is the state song of Kentucky, a song that has inhabited hearts and memories, and in perpetual reprise, stands outside time; sung each May, before every Kentucky Derby, since 1929.

Written by Stephen Foster nine years before the Civil War, "My Old Kentucky Home" made its way through the wartime years, from its original composition as an abolitionist rallying cry, to its decades-long run as a national minstrel sensation for which it was written; from its reference in the pages of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind to being sung on "The Simpsons" and "Mad Men".

Originally called "Poor Uncle Tom, Good-Night!", and inspired by America's most famous abolitionist novel, it was a lament by a slave, sold by his master, who must say goodbye to his beloved birthplace, with hints of the brutality to come: "The head must bow and the back will have to bend ..."

In My Old Kentucky Home, Emily Bingham explores the long, strange journey of what has come to be seen by some as an American anthem, an integral part of our folklore, culture, customs, foundation, a living symbol of a "happy past". But "My Old Kentucky Home" was never just a song. It was always a song about slavery with the real Kentucky home inhabited by the enslaved and shot through with violence, despair, and degradation.

Bingham explores the song's history and permutations from its decades of performances across the continent, entering into the bloodstream of American life, through its 21st century reassessment. It is a song that has been repeated, taught and passed down from generation to generation, bridging a nation's fraught disconnect between haunted history and warped illusion.