Mary wept an’ Martha cried,
To see deir Saviour crucified,
Weepin’ Mary weep no mo’,
Jesus say he gone befo’.
It proves an interesting task to follow the development and changes in a song that has survived from slavery days. In “Free, free my Lord”, one of the verses was quite a puzzle. During the recent summer the following stanza was heard:
The moon come down like a piper’s stem,
The sun ’fuse to shine,
An’ ev’y star disappear,
King Jesus set me free.
Inquiry was made in order to see if the words had not been misunderstood. The older negroes gave this version and insisted that it was correct, but none of them could explain what it meant. It was thought that perhaps it was a figure applied to the moon’s rays or that the loss of the sun might have meant the peculiar appearance of the moon. Anyway, they maintained, this was the “way we got de song an’ guess it must be right.” The words of the original song were,
The moon run down in purple stream,
The sun forbear to shine,
An’ ev’y star disappear,
King Jesus shall be mine,
of which there seemed to be several versions. Other verses that are found to-day are:
As I went down in de valley one day,
I fell upon my knees,
I begged and cried fer pardon,
The Lord did give me ease.
Free, free, my Lord,
Free, free, my Lord,
Free, free, my Lord,
To march de heaven’s highway.
The Lord called Moses,
Moses refuse to answer,
Free, free, etc.
My mother look at de son an’ smile,
My Father look at me,
My mother turn my soul from hell,
King Jesus set me free,
is an unusual variation and interpretation of the old song; just how and when the negro inserted the idea of mother would be difficult to ascertain; perhaps it came from “master,” or more likely it was introduced by them while they interpreted father and son as names of the ordinary members of a human family. The original form seems to have been,
De Father, he looked on de Son and smiled,
De Son, he looked on me;
De Father, he redeemed my soul from hell;
An’ de Son, he set me free.
The chorus, too, has been much confused and is given as “Children light on dat cross, God bless you forever mo’.” The song is not a common one among the negroes and is not known, apparently, among the younger ones. In contrast with this favorite of the older negroes may be given a favorite of the younger generation, “Glad I got religion.” The repetition represents pretty well the relative depth of the feeling which the convert feels. But he loves to sing it for its pleasing sound and for the faith it gives him in his own religious state. The song is a long and continued chorus and may well be taken as a type of the song which reflects the negro’s feeling of immunity from sin.