This morning I stumbled upon a bouncy, up-tempo version of “Ol’ Man River.” It featured a Hammond organ! And a saxophone! And a sort of swingin’ interpretation of the lyrics, e.g.: “You and me, we! Sweat-n-sweat-n-sweat and strain!”

What. The. Hell.

This has to be one of the most moving songs ever written. Yes, it’s hackneyed in places, and yes, it treads not so lightly in uncomfortable racism territory. The original 1920s-era lyrics, in fact, blithely began, “Niggers all work on de Mississippi.” Later versions changed the term to “darkies,” then “colored folks.” Eventually, the standard became the more generic but somehow missing the mark “here we all work on the Mississippi.”

Missing the mark especially when performed by white fellas. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett. It seems particularly audacious to sing about your aching, bale-toting body when you’re a white male crooner in a tux.

This morning’s version turned out to be by Earl Grant. Not white. But that doesn’t make his perky swing version any better in my book. This song is melancholy, plodding, painful, and then soaring — it’s written that way for a reason. To perk it up is to pay it no mind.

Full disclosure: I sometimes sing this as a lullaby for Junior. Aware that I’m a white woman in the 21st Century, and that I’m singing to my toddler about slavery and pain and death and the fundamental inconsequential nature of human life in an effort to relax him into sleep, I feel a tinge of inappropriateness. But I can’t shake the beauty of the song. Ech, maybe that’s how Bing felt too.