When Mom was a girl on a bus headed for camp, they began with:

Oh the Deacon went down to the cellar to pray.
He fell asleep and he stayed all day.

The next verse I remember from Mom led naturally into the chorus:

Oh, I grieved my Lord, and I went astray:
I left the straight and narrow way.
[Repeat the verse, faster and without pauses, then chorus:]

I ain't a-gonna grieve my Lord no more.
[Repeat chorus twice fast, then once slow.]

Other verses included:

Oh, you can't get to heaven with powder and paint
'Cause they make you look like what you ain't.

Oh you can't get to heaven on a trolley car
Cause the goldurned tracks aren't laid that far.

Then their bus driver improvised a verse. A teacher named Glen, with a couple of students left over after the bus filled, had started out following the bus in his own vehicle but had dropped behind at the last gas station. The driver sang:

Oh, you might get to heaven in the Jeep with Glen.
You might get to heaven, but I don't know when.

The kids loved it.


I never doubted that "grieve my Lord" meant "make Him sad." Since "I am not going to grieve him any more" is perfectly clear English, from a literate point of view Nigel's explanation seems more economical than Azizi's. This is certainly the case in the "day by day" verse: I hurt my Lord daily by transgressing. I won't do it any more.

However, Q, I think you suggested that in the lyrics of old African-American spirituals God is never the one feeling the grief. If true, this would convince me Azizi had it right: the oral version preceded the more literate interpretation (and explanatory verses). Did I understand you correctly, and have your further researches supported this assertion?