Till at last they came to a lonesome valley,
and where considerable melodic similarity is to be found. Further traces of this typical folk-tune are in ‘Young Beichan’, Sharp, i., 79; ‘My Mother Bid Me’, Sharp, ii., 94, tune D; ‘Opossum’, Sharp, ii., 353; ‘Drivin’ Steel’, Sandburg, p. 150; the negro song ‘You Got to Cross it for Yourself’, Sandburg, p. 486; and ‘That Lonesome Valley’, Grissom, p. 2.
In The Carolina Low-Country, pp. 284ff., there are two negro spirituals which lean heavily on ‘That Lonesome Valley’. The “lonesome valley” symbolized, among both negroes and whites, also the mourning period which was a necessary forerunner of religious conversion.
No. 215
[I’M BOUND TO DIE IN THE ARMY] or SERVICE OF THE LORD, OSH 80
Hexatonic, mode 3 b (I II III IV V VI —)
Farewell, vain world, I’m going home,
I am bound to die in the army;
My Savior smiles and bids me come,
I am bound to die in the army;