'Goin' Home'-Trivia
The song was performed in the movie by Jan Clayton who later played Ellen Miller (Jeff/Tommy Rettig's Mother) in the original T.V. series, "Lassie".
shareI saw the movie on TV in the 60's when I was in high school or junior high school. I think it is one of the most effective and haunting use of a song in a movie. The only other one I can think of is in the movie The Victors. A Christmas carol (I'll be home for Christmas, I think) is played over a scene of soldiers marching to an open area on Christmas morning as if they are going to a show. When they get there it turns out to be an execution by firing squad of a fellow G.I. for desertion. I believe the scene was inspired by the story of Eddie Slovik, the only American ever to be shot for desertion.
shareThe tune "Going Home" is the Largo theme from Dvorak's New World Symphony, with lyrics. Yes, very effective in "The Snake Pit," one of the first & one of the few movies to give serious credence to psychoanalysis.
51depasser
But you have it backwards. It is an old American folk song, the sort it was once politically okay to call a "Negro spiritual." It has long been associated with deathbeds and funerals, and predates the New World Symphony.
As for that work, Dvorak took his musical themes from folk music collected during a visit to the U.S. You can hear other songs besides "Going Home"-- "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Turkey in the Straw" come to mind. He was of course interested in folk music from his own part of the world, and incorporated its melodies and style into much of his more "formal" compositions.
Yes, "Going Home" is beautiful and haunting, and Dvorak does it justice to put it mildly.
I have to correct you. Yes, Dvorak urged that American composers look to "Negro Spirituals" and Native American music as a basis for a uniquely "American" music, but the song (lyrics) to "Goin' Home" do NOT pre-date Dvorak's 1893 symphony. In fact, one of Dvorak's students in America, William Arms Fisher, in 1922, wrote the lyrics "in the style of a negro spiritual."
shareIt is very common for critics to claim Dvorak's largo from his "New World Symphony" is taken from Negro or Native American themes, but Dvorak himself claimed it was original with him and borrowed only the "spirit" of new world melodies. I tend to believe Dvorak. I think it is significant that noone has ever cited a specific example of any folk song or spiritual that exhibits that melody.
shareWell, better late than never I always say. I'm correcting you only 8 years later. In any case, the song playing during the execution by firing squad in the movie "The Victors" was "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" sung by Frank Sinatra.
BTW, The Victors was one of those great movies that seemed to fall through the cracks.
In those eight years The Victors has not been on TV to my knowledge. Not exactly the sort of movie to show on a Memorial day or Veterans day marathon. Although they always show Apocalypse Now. Another great movie. Has TCM ever had an anti war theme night?
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