Gospel Spirituals (con't) page 4

Three spirituals that examplify these customary borrowings are Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning, Rise and Shine, and Jacob’s Ladder (see Appendix B).

Observe Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning from the collection, The Story of the Jubilee Singers with Their Songs by J. B. Marsh (1887), as the parent spiritual.  There are two parts, the chorus:

Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burning
Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burning
Keep your lamps trimmed and a-burning
For this work’s almost done.

And the stanza:

Brothers, don’t grow weary
Brothers, don’t grow weary

There are two additional sections that are repeats of the chorus.  The second time the chorus is repeated, the text is changed.  Of the three lines of text, two are borrowed from the spiritual,  We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder:

Tis religion makes us happy, (etc.)
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, (etc.)
Every round goes higher and higher, (etc.)
For this work’s almost done.

Both spirituals, We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder and Rise and Shine, draw on the text of the chorus and on the stanza of Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.

Rise and Shine, from Jubilee and Plantation Songs (1887), uses two inner stanzas from the spiritual, Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.  The first phrase, “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,” appears as the second part of the second stanza:

You may keep your lamps trimmed and burning, burning
You may keep your lamps trimmed and burning, burning
You may keep your lamps trimmed and burning, burning
For the year of Jubilee.

The second inner stanza, substituting “children” for “Brothers,” appears as the beginning of the third stanza:

Oh, come on children, don’t be weary, weary
Oh, come on children, don’t be weary, weary
Oh, come on children, don’t be weary, weary
For the year of Jubilee.

Each of these spirituals is being used in the twentieth century as a gospel song or as a borrowed text for a gospel song.

The gospel arrangement of Jacob’s Ladder uses the chorus of Rise and Shine as one of its stanzas.  This is achieved by omitting the word “and” on the fourth beat of each measure in the chorus and substituting “Soldier of the cross” for “For the year of Jubilee” in the last four measures of the chorus:

Rise, shine give God the glory, glory
Rise, shine give God the glory, glory
Rise, shine give God the glory, glory
Soldier of the cross.

Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning, the gospel song, maintains the original character of the spiritual, but incorporates many gospel features.  The text, “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,” is retained, but “For this nigh.”  Also, “Brother don’t get weary” becomes “Children don’t be weary.”  A new stanza is also added:

Christian journey soon be over
Christian journey soon be over
Christian journey soon be over
The time is drawing nigh.

An example of incipit borrowing occurs in the chorus of the spiritual, I Don’t Feel Noways Tired, found in the collection, Hampton and Its Students, (1903).  The first phrase of the chorus of the spiritual:

Lord, I don’t feel noways tired
Children oh glory hallelujah
For I hope to shout glory when dis world is on fiah
Children on glory hallelujah.

Appears as the first phrase of the chorus of the gospel version:

I don’t feel noways tired
I’ve come to o far from where I started from
Nobody told me the road would be easy
I don’t believe he brought me this far to leave me. 

In conclusion, consideration will be given to the spiritual,  The old Ship of Zion.  In examining nineteenth-century sources for its relationship to gospel, it was discovered that there are at least eight different versions of this spiritual:  The Chorus (1860)—I version; Homes of the United States (Allen, Mckim, 1867)—2 versions; Army Life in a Black Regiment (T. W. Higginson, 1870)—3 versions; and Jubilee Singers (1877)—1 version.

According to William Frances Allen in Slave Songs (1867), this spiritual was sung approximately 150 years ago:

We have received two versions of the Old Ship of Zion, quite different from each other and from those given from Col. Higginson.  The first was sung twenty-five years ago by the colored people of Ann Arundel Company, Maryland.  The words may he found in The Chorus (Philadelphia: A. S. Jenks, 1860), p. 170.(10)

Based on the publication data of the preceding quote, it is probable that this version dates back to approximately 1842.

This spiritual, popular among black Americans of the nineteenth century, remains a favorite gospel song in the twentieth century.  The song, with textual variations, appears in at least three gospel collections:  Wings Over Jordan (1940s)—I version:  Thomas A Dorsey (1950)—l 

Version:  and Modern Gospel (1985)—l version.

Although some of the corresponding stanzas are not the same, there is a common thread that connects the different v3ersions.  The primary connection is the chorus:

Tis the old ship of Zion, hallelujah
Tis the old ship of Zion, hallelujah

which appears in all but two or the versions.  The second connecting feature is the stanza:

King Jesus is the Captain
King Jesus is the Captain

which is borrowed from the spiritual for the gospel versions.

The longevity and popularity of The Old Ship of Zion, as both a spiritual and a gospel song, indicate the importance of the text:  when the black man of the twentieth century needed to express his dissatisfaction with this world, he often used the words inherited from the rich oral tradition of the spirituals of the nineteenth century.  Through the power of the texts of these songs, dealing with the struggle for survival, black Americans continue to find hope and affirmation, and, according to W. E. B. DuBois, “a faith in the ultimate justice of things.”(11)

APPENDIX A

Texts of Spirituals Borrowed for Gospel Songs
 
 

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