My conversation’s spiritless,
Or else I’ve nought to say.
The words appeared in Mercer’s Cluster, a Georgia hymn and spiritual-song collection of the 1820’s. The earliest appearance of the tune seems to have been in the Southern Harmony (1835). Found also in HH 128, UH 57, KNH 42, HOC 37, SOC 109, GOS 380, PB 343. The tune is a variant of ‘[Antioch]’, in this collection.
For negro tune derivatives see White Spirituals, 259. Among the tunes in secular environment, ‘Virginian Lover’, Sharp, ii., 149, tune B, shows closest relationship to the above. See also ‘Flat River Girl’, Rickaby, p. 6; and ‘Driving Saw Logs on the Plover’, Rickaby, p. 89.
No. 76
[YONGST], BS 203
Hexatonic, mode 3 b (I II III IV V VI —)
Father, I sing thy wondrous grace
And bless my Savior’s name,
Who bought salvation for the poor,