In looking through the folk-hymns in the second part of this collection one will see scores of tunes which are clearly recognizable as those still sung to ‘Barbara Allen’, ‘Lord Lovel’ and other ancient ballads. This is adequate evidence, I assume, as to where the folk sought and found its hymn tunes. The extent of this tune borrowing process is indicated on [page 18]f of this Introduction. The texts, on the other hand, may be from the pen of Watts or other eighteenth century English religious poets, or they may be the humbler creations of rural American religious verse makers, like John Adam Granade, or John Leland.
It is impossible to date the beginning of folk-hymn making and singing in America definitely. But on the assumption that they were a part of the Wesleyan movement, we cannot place the beginning of their general use in America before the 1770’s. The part of the land where they first attained popularity—again judging by their Wesleyan affinities—was the upland and inland South; for during the last two decades of the eighteenth century (the time of the first spread of the Methodist movement) four-fifths of the adherents to this sect were to be found in that section.[3]
Revival Spiritual Songs
The revival spiritual songs represent a further advance of the song movement which brought forth the folk-hymns, toward the folk level. As the eighteenth century expired the post-Wesleyan religious tide was high and the camp meeting, the significant institution which became the cradle of the revival spiritual songs, was born. One may therefore get a clearer insight into this new song development if one recalls the character of its early environment. One might well remember, for example, that the camp meetings began and remained in nature surroundings, in the wilderness; that they were immense holiday gatherings;[4] that they thus took on the free-and-easy aspects of the pioneers as a whole rather than of any particular class; and that they were completely free from denominational and all other authoritarian control.
Bearing all this in mind it is perhaps easier to understand how the folk-hymns—grown up in a less boisterous environment—failed to satisfy the new conditions. At the camp meetings it was not a question of inducing every one to sing, but of letting every one sing, of letting them sing songs which were so simple that they became not a hindrance to general participation but an irresistible temptation to join in. The tunes of the folk-hymns were adequate. But the texts (Watts, Wesley and their schools) still demanded a certain exercise of learning and remembering which excluded many from the singing. The corrective lay in the progressive simplification of the texts; and it was in the main this text simplification which brought about and characterised the type of camp-meeting song which was called, in contradistinction to all other types, the spiritual song.
The methods of song-text reducing are familiar. When the American youth sings
Found a horse-shoe, found a horse-shoe,
Found a horse-shoe, just now;
Just now found a horse-shoe,
Found a horse-shoe just now