This is one of a family of songs in which a great golden vehicle, powered and directed by God, manned by angels, comes down from heaven through the skies to pick up and elevate a particular individual.”. The heavenly chariot can also represent trouble for mankind, as in ancient images of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, driving his chariot with one hand and hurling thunderbolts at the earth with the other. Thurman, Howard, Deep River Harper and Brothers, 1955. Herskovits, Melville J., The Myth of the Negro Past, Beacon, 1941. Considered by Erik Routley (PHH 31) to be one of the "archetypal" African American spirituals, "Swing Low" welcomes death as the occasion "to carry me home" to glory. 100% Legal and Safe to download. The song became known with the passing on of the story, which seems more legendary than real. Although there is no one particular author associated with these lyrics, the style is clearly recognizable, and all of the individual elements that we can see in this poem are easy to trace back to slave experiences. Poetry for Students. The eschatological theme of this hymn makes it a good choice as a hymn of response after preaching on this theme, or during the Advent season. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt: in biblical times, the border to that land was the River Jordan, which feeds the Red Sea. It is therefore understandable that, while working in the fields, slaves would sing about someone coming to take them to the land of freedom. Reprinted in Early American Writing In the second stanza, the lead voice sings about a group of angels coming from Jordan, the river that flows from the Sea of Galilee through the biblical Holy Land. CCLI, OneLicense, etc). This belief is always particularly strong among oppressed people, such as slaves. The earliest known recording was in 1909, by the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. The most obvious interpretation of this poem is that it is about God and a band of angels coming to end the speaker’s worldly suffering with death and take him or her off to heaven. Slavery is the unconditional servitude of one individual to another. There are a few speculations as to the origin of this text. If this score will be projected or included in a bulletin, usage must be reported to a licensing agent (e.g. I’ll also share my thoughts … 1973: Chicago’s Sears Tower was built at 1454 feet tall (1707 with antennae). If the listener thinks of the song as an expression of hope for liberation from slavery, then the friends would be those slaves who have already escaped. 416-22. In this poem, the phrase “carry me home,” which seems to clearly indicate a trip to the afterlife, can be read as having a double meaning. In the South, blacks became familiar with the hymns that had been handed down from European roots through religious services at outdoor, travelling camp meetings, which were also segregated from white gatherings. Refrain: swing low, sweet chariot, Long and Eugenia W. Collier, Penn State University Press, 1985, pp. Du Bois, W. E. B., “Of the Sorrow Songs,” in The Souls of Black Folk, New York, 1903, reprinted by Bantam, 1989, pp. Most subtle were the individua…, https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/swing-low-sweet-chariot. 1975: The first personal computer, the MITS Altair 8800, was released to the market in kit form. Howard Thurman also strongly supports the spiritual interpretation. Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes In spite of the "ups" and "downs" of earthly life (st. 3), it is comforting for Christians to know with certainty that their final destination is the glory of a new heaven and earth. Rather than be separated from her child, she was about to drown herself and little one in the Cumberland River, when she was prevented by an old Negro woman, who exclaimed, “Wait, let de Chariot of de Lord swing low and let me take de Lord’s scroll and read it to you.” The heart-broken mother became consoled and was reconciled to the parting. It refers to the Biblical story of the Prophet Elijah's being taken to heaven by a chariot. She is the managing editor of Warpland: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas at Chicago State University and the author of Urban Rage in Bronzeville: Social Commentary in the Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, 1945-1960. The spiritual is known for its enduring quality and beauty as well as the overwhelming emotional component that is visible in the epic intensity and the profound tragedy of the songs. Although there is no one particular author associated with these lyrics, the style is clearly recognizable, and all of the individual elements that we can see in this poem are easy to trace back to slave experiences. SWING LOW A pentatonic melody, SWING LOW has the musical structure of "call and response" (solo and chorus) which is common in the rote practices associated with African American spirituals. Lovell also addresses the theory that one person composed “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”; he quotes the famous scholar H. L. Mencken, who has theorized that probably one poet composed “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” Mencken believes the poet “was one of the greatest poets we have ever produced, and he came so near being our greatest musician that I hesitate to look for a match for him.”, Many authorities have analyzed the meaning of the “chariot” and the word “home” in this spiritual. Du Bois commented that in the Negro spiritual, the “soul of the black slave spoke to men” and that “by fateful chance the Negro folksong—the rhythmic cry of the slave—stands to-day not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born on this side of the seas.” The assessments of Locke and Du Bois concerning the universal appeal of the Negro spirituals were confirmed by the worldwide acclaim and financial success of the Fisk Jubilee Singers whose artistic renditions of the spirituals, from 1871-1875, netted them $150,000 to build Fisk University. In this view “home” would imply escape from slavery, and the “band of angels” would be representatives from Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad who would lead groups of slaves north to freedom. First is the repetition of the refrain on every even-numbered line. Unlike traditional white hymns, which tended to emphasize moral themes such as good and evil, right and wrong, the Negro spirituals focused on the aspect of Christianity that promised salvation from suffering. If the song expresses the slaves’ wish to enter heaven, then the friends would be those whose souls have already ascended. While spirituals owe their basic structure to the work songs of slaves, they owe at least as much to Christian hymns. “Band” also implies an unbreakable union in the image of a circular construction, a hoop-like form. The tune SWING LOW is typical of a spiritual’s music structure, in that it uses “call and response,” or The legend of Moses has him part the Red Sea, which is just a swelling of the River Jordan, in leading the Chosen People to freedom. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” is a spiritual song in the style developed by American Negro slaves during the nineteenth century. Brown, Sterling, “Negro Folk Expression: Spirituals, Seculars, Ballads and Work Songs,” in Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry, 2nd ed., edited by Richard A. However, one song collector, John Wesley Work, in his book Folk Songs of the American Negro, reported a legend that it was composed by Hannah Shepherd of Tennessee in the mid-nineteenth century. They include the Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa, Fulani, Akan, Ewe, Ga, Wolof, Touculeur, Mande, Sherbro, Luba, Kuba, Dan, Douala, Ibidio, and Edo. Since the chariot in this song is “sweet” it suggests a conveyance to heaven more than to battle in war. This interpretation has its origin in the Bible, which contains descriptions of chariots used in war as well as to transport honored souls, such as the prophet Elijah’s, to heaven. © 2019 Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Source: Maude Cuny-Hare, Negro Musicians and Their Music, Associated Publishers, 1936, pp. In the South, slaves were told by the law that this was not their home but the home of their owners—that even people born in America had no home of their own on earth. Liturgical Use: In America, it is told that the song arose from an incident which happened to a woman sold from a Mississippi plantation to Tennessee. coming for to carry me home. However, there are scholars who pose an alternate explication of Negro spirituals such as “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” For instance, abolitionist and ex-slave Frederick Douglass was adamant in his view that the Negro spirituals were not limited to such simplistic Biblical interpretations, but, instead, were encoded with a secret language of escape. The Jordan is also significant because the Bible indicates that it is the river in which John the Baptist baptized Jesus Christ. He discusses the religious experiences of the slaves, pointing out that in the absence of hope for liberation from slavery, they found comfort in the promise of “release in death” and expressed that comfort in songs such as “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” Maude Cuney-Hare supports the religious reading of the spiritual in her discussion of its origin. As pointed out by John Wesley Work in his book American Negro Songs and Spirituals, African-American songs often retain forms that originated in African tribal customs.

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