"I Ain't Got Time to Tarry", also known as "The Land of Freedom", is an American song

American popular music

American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...

 written by blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

 minstrel

Minstrel show

The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

 composer Dan Emmett

Dan Emmett

Daniel Decatur "Dan" Emmett was an American songwriter and entertainer, founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition.-Biography:...

. It premiered in a minstrel show performance by Bryant's Minstrels

Bryant's Minstrels

Bryant's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe that performed in the mid-19th century, primarily in New York City. The troupe was led by the O'Neill brothers from upstate New York, who took the stage name Bryant....

 in late November 1858. The song was published in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1859.

The lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 tell of a black man in the Northern United States

Northern United States

Northern United States, also sometimes the North, may refer to:* A particular grouping of states or regions of the United States of America. The United States Census Bureau divides some of the northernmost United States into the Midwest Region and the Northeast Region...

 who is homesick for the South

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

. He decides to return to the South, as illustrated in the chorus

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

:

For I'se gwine home to Dinah,

Yes, I am gwine home.

Den I ain't got time to tarry, I ain't got time to dwell,

I'm bound to de land of freedom, oh, niggars! fare you well.

The pining ex-slave scenario was a common idiom of blackface minstrelsy during the 1850s. Emmett would repeat it in other songs, including "Johnny Roach

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 home and realizes that he really belongs in the South:*Nathan, Hans ....

" and "Dixie

Dixie (song)

Countless lyrical variants of "Dixie" exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular. Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s toward growing abolitionist sentiment. The song presented the point...

".

Emmett's later "I'm Going Home to Dixie

I'm Going Home to Dixie

"I'm Going Home to Dixie" is an American walkaround, a type of dance song. It was written by Dan Emmett in 1861 as a sequel to the immensely popular walkaround "Dixie". The sheet music was first published that same year by Firth, Pond & Company in an arrangement by C. S. Grafully...

" reuses the tune to "I Ain't Got Time to Tarry".