“Ol' Man River”

1. A song from the musical Show Boat; the river is the Mississippi River. The music to “Ol' Man River” is by Jerome Kern and the words by Oscar Hammerstein II; it was memorably sung by Paul Robeson.

Example Sentences

There are two powerful renditions, from 1943 and 1945, of what was regarded as the greatest of all art songs of the interwar era, Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s “Ol’ Man River.”

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The following year, Peluso starred in the 2016 West End revival of “Show Boat,” a musical he had connected with — particularly its song “Ol’ Man River” — when he was a young actor.

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But the production is an endearing party, one that extends outside during the first intermission to a pond near the festival theater, for a gleefully messy, proudly queer, highly eclectic performance ranging among the likes of “I Am What I Am,” “Part of Your World” and “Ol’ Man River.”

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It heralds “Ol’ Man River’s” heartbreak, the way enough time in Hollywood domesticates even the freest spirit into commercial relatability.

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He is Ol’ Man River Goes to Hollywood, a pulp fiction I unpack again and again until I can comprehend the lucid delirium he must have endured to live through those two opposing circumstances.

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