O Mary Don't You Weep

O Mary Don't You Weep

If I could I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood
Pharoah's army got drowned
O Mary don't you weep

O Mary don't you weep don't you mourn (2x)
Pharoah's army got drowned / O Mary don't you weep!

Moses stood on the Red Sea Shore
Smotin' the water with a two by four / Pharoah's army...
     The Lord told Moses what to do
     To lead those Hebrew children thru...
God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water but fire next time...
     Mary work three links of chain
     Every link was freedom's name...
When I get to Heaven, gonna sing & shout
Nobody up there to put me out!
     One of these mornings, it won't be long
     You're gonna call my name, but I'll be gone...
One of these days 'bout 12 o'clock
This old world's gonna reel & rock...
     One of these days in the middle of the night
     People gonna rise & set things right...

Coming from both the Old and New Testaments, this song and other recent songs prompts me to imagine an echo that literally travels through time. The song comes from the belly, and is passed to a set of ears which take the song in and pass it through the belly again and so forth. And this is how the song is passed and digested through time and through bodies. Decades and all kinds of people and somehow to us. The breath and the strength of O Mary Don't You Weep travels through us when we sing it to lift us up, so lucky.

Reflecting still on Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

NOTES: After reading Chapter 14. of the Sorrow Songs from Souls of Black Folk by Du Bois, I feel somewhat relieved. Last week, when trying to understand and interpret Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, I found it difficult to really connect.

Excerpt from Du Bois: "Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song -- soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit."

I believe that in this case, the song comes from a place I cannot truly imagine. The truths sung in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot are not my own and will never be. In this way, they are sacred. I feel more comfortable admitting this: lack of understanding, lack of connection, a real distance from the song and the place it comes from. Although the song, its tones and words, are obviously profound, obviously convey a soul and spirit, there are secrets in there that do not belong to me.

These songs are precious and perhaps deceptively straight-forward. If anything, I do believe they are a gift sometimes, to be appreciated with humility.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Swing low, sweet chariot
Comin' for to carry me home

I looked over Jordan & what did I see
 Comin' for to carry me home
A band of angles comin' after me / Comin'...

I'm sometimes up & sometimes down
But still I know I'm heavenly [freedom] bound

If you get there before I do
Tell all my friends that I'm comin' too

If I get there before you do
I'll cut a hole & pull you though

language is the spirit voiced, in pencil marks, rhythms and lines

the senses come together at this point in time to tell you a secret story

stolen cows sing to you now, sweet illogical harmonies

you, the cows are dancing now, a faint glimmer and into the distance

NOTES: The rhythm and sound of the spirituals, work songs, and gospel share a particular closeness to the metaphysical qualities of experience - the spirit takes, the soul keeps. The song takes us there and keeps us here by cutting a hole and pulling us through from one moment to the next. The voices in these songs take us to the truth. In Jumping Judy, the hit of the hammer comes on the first of four beats and is followed by a voice summoned from the core. The stumbling, grumbling voice in Joseph Spence's Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer dances all over the four beat, goes where ever it will go. Particularly deep tones come out of the words, "chariot" and "home" in Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. The "a" and "o" notes are sustained and ring deep.

You Are My Sunshine

You Are My Sunshine 

The other night, as I lay sleepin'
Dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke dar, I was mistaken'
An' I hung my head an' cried

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

I'll always love you an' make you happy
If you will only say th same
But if you leave me for another
You'll regret it all some day

You told me once't dear, you really loved me
An' no one else could come between
But now you left me for another
You have scattered all my dreams

via Missouri State University

NOTES: Simple, mundane objects of experience so ubiquitous as sunshine make for a connection to love so strong and profound that it is nearly impossible to be without. The song brings our imagination to a place that hinges between one with sunshine and one without - we teeter totter between the real and imagined state of being without our love, our sunshine, our home which keeps us feeling whole. Phrased in the past tense, we get a sense of time and memory which both strengthen and distort our story as time goes on. Maybe someone is sitting in their kitchen, alone, looking at the old counter top and imagining how it once was - simple, mundane, whole. 

The audio version by Ollie Gilbert, recorded in 1971 is the most simple - a single voice singing, a cough, textured vocal tones free of context - and distills the meaning of the song to the listener, who is free to connect with their own particular experience and place. Her sound speaks to her age and experience distilled and expressed. In contrast, Jimmie Davis' version is more orchestrated and embedded in the style and tones of the peppy clarinet flourish, muted trumpet, and idyllic guitar strums - this version speaks to Jimmie Davis' particular time and place. Gene Autry's version further smoothes out the roughness of the tune with straight kept time. Still, the meter and meaning of the words in all versions endure and is enough to convey a particular experience. 

Down in the Valley

Down in the Valley

The song takes me to the Carrizo Plain in recent memory: