Johnny Roach

"Johnny Roach" is an American song written by blackface minstrel composer Dan Emmett. The song was first published in 1859. The lyrics tell of a slave who has escaped to the Northern United States. He laments his lost plantation house and realizes that he really belongs in the South:

To Canada old John was bound

All by de railroad underground;

He's got no clothes—he's got no "tin"

He wishes he was back agin [sic].^[1]

The song is notable for being the first printed reference to the South as “Dixie’s Land”:

Gib me de place called "Dixie's Land,"

Wid hoe and shubble in my hand;

Whar fiddles ring an' banjos play,

I'll dance all night an' work all day.^[1]

A portion of the chorus was repeated in "Dixie" with slight variation.^[2]

Notes

1. Quoted in Nathan 244.
2. Nathan 254.

References

• Nathan, Hans (1962). Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.