Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

[Chorus]

I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, "Old Black Joe."

[Solo]

Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again,
Grieving for forms Now departed long a go?
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

[Chorus]

I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, "Old Black Joe."
[Solo] Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee,
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go.
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

[Chorus]

I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, "Old Black Joe."

- Stephen C. Foster

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