The song was recorded under the title "Death, Have Mercy" in Sounds of the South, disc 3 (Atlantic 7 82496-2). Lomax notes:

Death, Have Mercy, sung by Vera Hall, Livingdtone, Ala. White spirituals express a real yearning for death and a longing for a release from the earthly torment in the orderly pleasures of heaven. Black spiritual composers take a somewhat different view. They took forward to heaven as a place of rest, where there will be love, equality and joy. Death itself is feared. This epic song, which comes out of the best period of the spiritual a century ago, describes death in realistic language and in a way to make the blood run cold.

O Death have, mercy, O Death be easy,
O Death just spare me over another year...

...What is this that I can't see
Cold ice hands all over me.
Stretch my eyes and stretch my lims--
This is the way that Death begins.

Vera Hall's wide leaps and dramatic shifts of voice quality relate directly to the drama of the text. This highly individualized approach to singing style is a basic part of the African tradition of both speech and song. Here, Vera uses it to set forth the terror of the dying soul as it confronts the personified spectre of death.

~Masato