No. 214
[THAT LONESOME VALLEY], Author’s recording
Pentatonic, mode 3 (I II III — V VI —)
You got to go that lonesome valley,
You got to go there by yourself.
There’s no one can go there for you;
You got to go there,
you got to go there by yourself.
Recorded by the author, February 11, 1933, from the singing of Don West of the Highlander Folk School, Monteagle, Tennessee. Mr. West told me that the two subsequent stanzas began, “You got to lie in that lonesome graveyard” and “Some folks say that John was a Baptist.” After each verse the tune is repeated to the words of the first stanza.
The source of this spiritual song is very likely ‘In Seaport Town’, see Sharp, i., 310, in which there is the recurring phrase: