"
Ol' Man River" (music by
Jerome Kern, lyrics by
Oscar Hammerstein II) is a song in the 1927
musical Show Boat that contrasts the struggles and hardships of
African Americans with the endless, uncaring flow of the
Mississippi River; it is sung from the point of view of a black
stevedore on a
showboat, and is the most famous song from the show. Meant to be performed in a slow tempo, it is sung complete once in the musical's lengthy first scene by the stevedore "Joe" who travels with the boat, and, in the stage version, is heard four more times in brief
reprises. Joe serves as a sort of musical one-man
Greek chorus, and the song, when reprised, comments on the action, as if saying, "This has happened, but the river keeps rolling on anyway."