Nelly Bly

"Nelly Bly" is a minstrel song published in 1850 by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York. According to Ken Emerson, the titular character was a servant who poked her head out of a cellar door to listen to Foster serenade friends. The name struck Foster’s fancy, and she appeared as a guest at a ball in "Oh! Lemuel!" (1849). "Nelly Bly" anticipates the joys of marriage and housekeeping, according to Emerson, and its melody has a “merry, nursery-rhyme charm”. He describes the song as a “sweet, domestic idyll, and apart from the blackface dialect, there’s not a hint of condescension toward the object of the singer’s affection”. "Nelly Bly" was later adapted to a campaign song for Lincoln, and, in the 1870s, journalist Elizabeth Cochran used the name as her byline. Harold Vincent Milligan declares the song one of the few happy songs Foster wrote, and notes that the composer “turned instinctively to sentimental melancholy, the yearnings of homesickness and sad memories of the past. “Nelly Bly“ is a song of contentment and plenty, and more truly characteristic of the negro than "Brudder Gum", or "O Susanna" Because the chorus is set for two sopranos, Richard Jackson suggests that "Nelly Bly" may be imagined as a song for two kitchen maids who sing and play the banjo as they sweep the floor, stoke the fire, and cook.

• Ken Emerson. 1998. Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster and the rise of American popular culture. Da Capo Press. pp. 158-9
• Richard Jackson. 1974. Stephen Foster Song Book Dover Publications, Inc. p. 177.
• Harold Vincent Milligan. Stephen Collins Foster: a biography of America's folk-song composer. p. 52.

This work is not backed by a scanned copy of the edition from which it was transcribed. Please see this document's talk page for details for verification. "Source" means a location at which other users can find a copy of this work. Ideally this will be a scanned copy of the original that can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and proofread. If one is not available, please explain on the talk page.