Music at Odds

Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the white commander of the First South Carolina Volunteers, in the Civil war, wrote often in his diary of the songs of the black soldiers and their music. “Give these people their tongues, their feet and their leisure and they are happy. ” marveled Higginson. “At every twilight the air is full of singing, talking and clapping of hands in unison.” In 1866, after Emancipation, the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University was established in Nahville, Tennessee by the American Missionary Association to keep negro spirituals alive. The words of songs recorded by this Colonel Higginson from the first volunteer regiment were sung. Simple they were, poignant they be still, but complicated they were not.

Ride on King Jesus,
No man can a-hinder me.
Ride on King Jesus,
No man can a-hinder me.

This old hammer killed John Henry,
This old hammer killed John Henry,
This old hammer killed John Henry,
But it won’t kill me!
No, it won’t kill me!

Swing Low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit,
Your ears are mighty long.
Yes, kind sir,
They’re put on wrong!
Every little soul must shine, shine, shi-ine.
Every little soul must shine, shine, shine.

There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole.
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul.

Kum Ba Ya, My Lord
Kum Ba Ya
Kum Ba Ya, My Lord
Kum Ba Ya

In contrast, 20th century nature lovers and populist poets speak.

Country Sunset
Soft opalescent pinks and blue
of fluid sunset sky
Show abalone pearl-tipped clouds,
sea-shells – hung up to dry.

Country Stream
The lovely stream
So country-free
Now skirts a hill,
Now skips a tree,
Then, leaving shade
Where willows toss
Their gray-green leaves,
It runs across.

A slanting meadow
Daisy-starred,
Then lingers by
A near farmyard
Where, after seeming
Rest, once more
It turns and twists on
As before.

Winter Noise

Silently they fall – the first snowflakes,
Shrouding the world in white.
Cold and wondrous – this winter season
Icy streams bubbling over stones
Chickadees and finches
Calling to their mates.
Through woods of bare tree tops
Old man winter whispers his frosty breath
Branches creak and sway in the frozen silence,
Echoes of woodpeckers tap, tap, tapping.
A pause and then-
The thunderous quiet of winter.



Simple rhythmic repetition or complicated thought. Which do you prefer? You decide between two musical traditions at odds with each other.