| Author | Topic: Add: Go Down, Moses | |
| dmcg | Posted - 03 Jul 05 - 04:17 pm | |
When Israel was in Egypt land, Let my people go, Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go. Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land, Tell old Pharaoh To let my people go. "Thus spoke the Lord" bold Moses said, Let my people go, "If not, I'll smite your first-born dead" Let my people go. Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land, Tell old Pharaoh To let my people go. "Your foes shall not before you stand, Let my people go, And you'll possess fair Canaan's land, Let my people go. Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land, Tell old Pharaoh To let my people go. "You'll not get lost in the wilderness, Let my people go, With a lighted candle in your breast, Let my people go. Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt land, Tell old Pharaoh To let my people go. Source: Alan Lomax, The Penguin Book of American Folk Songs, Penguin, 1964 Notes: Alan Lomax wrote:
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| Azizi | Posted - 04 Jul 05 - 10:00 am | |
I have read that Harriet Tubman was called "Moses" by some African Americans {and persons of other races} because she helped led a number of enslaved African Americans to freedom in Canada. However, Harriet Tubman was not the only person to help enslaved African Americans flee slavery. Furthermore, independent of other Black people, individuals a significant number of folks successfully fled slavery. And many more died trying. All of this to say, with all due respect to Alan Lomax, I do not believe, nor have I read in any contemporary book on African American history or spirituals, that this song was composed in whole or in part, or sung as a referent {or in honor of} Harriet Tubman. In fact, IMO, it is farfetched and ludicrous to think that all enslaved African Americans who sung this song even knew of Harriet Tubman. And I feel strongly that to only consider this song as a coded message about or tribute to Harriet Tubman is to belittle the intelligence, creativity, and spirituality of African Americans. As an African American, I applaud Lomax for his work in collecting and preserving so many African American songs. However, at the same time I resent what I have read of his patronizing stance and actions. That being said, I agree with those who have said that Lomax was a product of his time who in some large measure rose above the prejudices of his time. But I can't help but think that if Lomax had surveyed African Americans, he would have been learned that "Go Down, Moses" was a song that spoke to enslaved African Americans desire for God to help us gain our freedom, just as he helped the 'Hebrew children'. As "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel" .another African American spiritual, puts it "He deliver Daniel from the lion's den/Jonah from the belly of the whale./He delivered the Hebrew children./And why not every man." And another thing-IMO, the theory of spirituals as coded messages is too incredulous for me. The spirtuals as coded messages theory postulates that spirtuals were sung to alert the community of enslaved African Americans that some one or a group of some ones would be fleeing slavery 'soon and very soon'. I mean how dumb do you think the White 'masters', White 'mistresses' and White overseers were??? Besides, {then as now}, there were far too many snitches {House N----gs or otherwise} for people to be telling their business to others. Why would people want to broadcast their plans to undertake this dangerous journey that if unsuccessful could lead to whippings, mutilations, or being sold to a harsher form of slavery???? IMO, the idea that "Go Down Moses" "Sreal Away", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Don't Miss That Train", and other African American spirituals were always or even mostly sung as coded messages is humbug. And don't get me started on my opinion of the truth or fiction of "Follow The Drinking Gourd".... Azizi Azizi | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 04 Jul 05 - 12:02 pm | |
Thanks for your comments, Azizi, and I take this opportunity to remind all readers that these threads are intended to include discussion of the background of the songs. No-one, including the original collector, has all the information on any song. In this case, I have no doubt that Alan Lomax will inevitably have brought his own biases, in the same way that Cecil Sharp inevitably brought an 'English/European' perspective when he collected in the Appalachians. Notice that Alan Lomax wrote this song 'is said to refer to ...'. That immediately raises the questions who says it, and in what circumstances. A phrase like that does tend to suggest a certain amount of hand-waving is going on. As for the 'coded messages' theory: I have always understood it in terms of general aspiration rather than detailed messages; the songs being 'double-entendres' speaking of both earthly and heavenly freedom. However, I haven't read very much about it, I must say. I agree that any group intending to escape (slaves, prisoners-of-war, whoever) would be remarkably unwise to sing a special song advertising the fact just before the escape bid. Edited By dmcg - 04-Jul-2005 12:46:43 PM | ||
| Azizi | Posted - 04 Jul 05 - 01:29 pm | |
You're welcome, dmcg. As a new member I am asking for an explanation of what you meant by "the background" of the song in your comment that "these threads are intended to include discussion of the background of the songs." Are discussions of the lyrics and possible etymological meanings of words & phrases off-limit? What about discussions of the psycho-social purposes and how those purposes may have changed over time or may be viewed differently by different groups of people over time? And though I hesitate to ask it, what does this site mean by "folk songs"? Azizi Azizi | ||
| Jon Freeman | Posted - 04 Jul 05 - 02:00 pm | |
Thank Azizi for your contribution. Basically we try to keep the song add threads reasonably clean (ie. not too much off topic stuff like me waffling on here). The aim is to make it easy for a future reader to find relavent information. Everything you mention is relavent. We don't shout if people do drift off topic but within the song add threads, I don't want to end up with threads of 100 posts and only 5 related to the topic. For the purposes of the song database, I'd say folk songs are songs that have existed in oral tradition is a reasonable guideline. We do exclude modern singer songwriter stuff. This is just the scope we have set for the song database and the corresponding "song add" threads. It does not reflect what anyone's own definition of a folk song is or mean that excluded songs may not be discussed - they just won't get added to the collection. Hope I've made a reasonable attempt at explaining. Edited By Jon Freeman - 04-Jul-2005 02:12:23 PM | ||
| Azizi | Posted - 04 Jul 05 - 04:31 pm | |
Thanks, Jon. I appreciate that information. And BTW, happy 4th of July! Opps! that was off topic!! **BG** Azizi Azizi | ||
| masato sakurai | Posted - 04 Jul 05 - 11:51 pm | |
"This spiritual was first referred to in a letter to the American Missionary Association from the Rev. Mr. Lockwood, dated Sept. 4, 1861" (James J. Fuld, The Book of World-Famous Music, 5th ed., 2000, p. 247). The possible first edition with the music and words (copyrighted Dec. 5, 1861, according to Fuld) is at the Levy collection: Title:The Song of the Contrabands. "O Let My People Go."See also "Editor's Table" (Continental Monthly: Devoted to literature and national policy, Volume 2, Issue 1, July 1862, p. 113); and A Reply to the Address of the Women of England, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 63, January 1863, p. 132).The familar version is in Jubilee Songs, as sung by the Jubilee Singer of Fisk University, copyrighted and published in 1872 (again according to Fuld). It is also contained in J.B.T. Marsh, The Story of the Jubilee Singers; With Their Songs ([1875], 1877, pp. 142-143, with music and 25 stanzas) as "Go Down, Moses" [also in the 1880 revised edition, which was reprinted by AMS, 1971]. Sarah H. Bradford's Harriet: The Moses of Her People (Geo. R. Lockwood & Son, 1886) seems to be one of the main sources for the story of Tubman as Moses in this song. The following is from pages 37-38. Up and down the road she passes to see if the coast is clear, and then to make them certain that it is their leader who is coming, she breaks out into the plaintive strains of the song, forbidden to her people at the South, but which she and her followers delight to sing together:Sarah H. Bradford had written another book on Tubman, which is also in the Ducumenting the South collection: Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (Auburn, N. Y.: W. J. Moses, Printer, 1869). The quotation below is from pp. 26-27. The song might not be "Go Down Moses"; The "Moses" in this song, I'm sure, is not Harriet.Oh go down, Moses,And then she enters the recesses of the wood, carrying hope and comfort to the anxious watchers there. One by one they steal out from their hiding places, and are fed and strengthened for another night's journey. I give these words [of "Hail, oh hail ye happy spirits"] exactly as Harriet sang them to me to a sweet and simple Methodist air. "De first time I go by singing dis hymn, dey don't come out to me," she said, "till I listen if de coast is clar; den when I go back and sing it again, dey come out. But if I sing:Moses go down in Egypt,den dey don't come out, for dere's danger in de way." I'd like to know since when the Moses of the spiritual has been advocated as Tubman. Irwin Silber wrote in 1960 in his Songs of the Civil War (1960, 1988; Dover, 1995, p. 270; underline mine):
Harold Courlander (in Negro Folk Music, U.S.A., Columbia University Press, 1963, p. 43), however, has a different opinion: It may well have been, as legend has it, that to some slaves Harriet Tubman was Moses. Yet in the semi-isolation in which many slaves found themselves, Harriet Tubman probably was not a household word, and "Go Down Moses" must have been sung by some slaves in the belief that Moses meant simply Moses. A large number of spirituals and anthems were so worded that they could have a disguised meaning; but it is not safe to assume (or even take the word of persons who were born in slavery) that they were created as anything else but religious songs. | ||