The above attribution "Traditional" in this case probably means, "It was originally a Negro spiritual but we cleaned it up and restyled it and claim credit and all future royalties for it as of such and such date." :~)

Particularly when a song enters the documented gospel "tradition" by way of an early black gospel recording, chances are it has been based on a spirituals melody and a complete or fragmented/recombined spirituals texts... and white folks composing later gospel music also often relied heavily on melodies and commonly-used verses from spirituals. Melodies would be reused for many songs, too, both the original spirituals and later "composed" songs drwn from them.

IMO, what becomes unique (marking a new "origins" beginning) is the stylistic stamp each performer puts on the piece by their arrangement and delivery. In my sound collection, for instance, I can compare many versions of one song. You can look at recording dates and see three or four distinct grandmothers to all of the later versions, with each later version obviously being imitative of one of those grandmother versions. When we're talking about music, we can't just look at the text and documentation--- we have to look at the feel of the song, especially in gospel, and especially in early black gospel which by its nature is expressive, not descriptive, of a spiritual/religious sensibility. So "origin" may have to mean a narrow set of song evolutions particular to whatever song is in question.

There are several factors that complicate tracing anything back to origins as a spiritual. First, we have only a very few of the many that existed, in written form.... these sprang up spontaneously on every plantation, and only a relatively few were transcribed at the time. But they lived on in memory and grew up and out into other documented songs, after slave times were well over. Also, titling is arbitrary-- original spirituals were used as worksongs with as many verses added each time as workers could dream up.... topics could be shifted and combined in odd ways and the "title" under which any day's version was documented could have been any recurring line. Even when a spiritual was sung in a strictly religious setting, there would usually be two contrasting or complementary themes running through it, one in the verse(s) and one in the refrain. Sometimes three themes-- one in the call part of the verse, one in the response part, and one in the refrain. A title could emerge from any of these, and a lot of songs are known variously by more than one title. Finally, the dialect of the titling-- in an effort to be historically faithful to the dialect of whoever a collector got a version from, the title will not necessarily be in today's English. "You Must Come in at the Door" could be:
"Must Come in at the Door"
"Mus' Come in at the Door"
"Mus' Come in at the Do' "
... or anything else! :~)

So a text search in researching any spiritual is problematic.


Here's another version of this song though:

SPIRITUAL?

There is a published spiritual called "YOU MUS' COME IN BY AN' THRO' DE LAMB" but I do not know if the text or tune are similar because I have neither a recording nor the songbook my records indicate for it ("My Songs").

Biblically, of course (we are talking about a gospel song), the origin would be about entering heaven by the strait (narrow way), Jesus being the gate as he describes in his role as shepherd guarding the door to the sheepfold.... shepherds would sleep across the opening to the sheep pen, keeping the sheep in and predators out.... no need to build a gate since in those days, if there were sheep in the fold, there would be a shepherd present, and gate duty would go to the low man or boy on the totem pole. (Sorry about the mixed metaphors!) Each spiritual tended to be a very elegant compilation and integration of many Biblical images and concepts, using just a few words to cover quite a lot of reading or preaching the slaves had been exposed to, and whatever reflections people had experienced from what they had heard and tried to live by. You can think of them as the icons or stained glass of their time-- using paperless artistic media to deliver and preserve information and guidance among people who did not tend to read the written word.

~Susan