Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair (c. 1854)

Yondering opens with “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”. Although the song begins with the narrator dreaming of Jeanie who he sees “floating like a vapor on the soft summer air,” it soon becomes apparent that Jeanie is gone as he sobs and wails “for the lost one who comes not again”. He is not dreaming of what he hopes will be but of what he has lost. Dreaming is a common thread that will be found in other songs in Yondering but, by beginning with a lost dream, Neumeier posits the potential for loss of youthful innocence. The song does not say what happened to Jeanie but it is interesting to note that Stephen Foster wrote this song shortly after his wife Jane left him.

I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair
Borne, like a vapor, on the summer air
I see her tripping where the bright streams play
Happy as the daisies that dance on her way

Many were the wild notes her merry voice would pour
Many were the blithe birds that warbled them o'er
Oh! I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair
Floating, like a vapor, on the soft, summer air

I long for Jeanie with the day dawn smile
Radiant in gladness, warm with winning guile
I hear her melodies, like joys gone by
Sighing round my heart o'er the fond hopes that die

Sighing like the night wind and sobbing like the rain
Wailing for the lost one that comes not again
Oh! I long for Jeanie, and my heart bows low
Never more to find her where the bright waters flow

I sigh for Jeanie, but her light form strayed
Far from the fond hearts round her native glade
Her smiles have vanished and her sweet songs flown
Flitting like the dreams that have cheered us and gone

Now the nodding wild flow'rs may wither on the shore
While her gentle fingers will cull them no more
Oh! I sigh for Jeanie with the light brown hair
Floating like a vapor, on the soft summer air