DRINKING OF THE WINE
(Bacom Lamar Lunsford)

CHORUDS:
Drinkin' of the wine, wine, wine.
Drinkin' of the wine, holy wine.
You ought o' been there four thousand years,
Drinkin' of the wine.

1. Drink it members, drink it free,
Flows from the root of a tender tree.
You ought o' been there four thousand years,
Drinking of the wine.

2. If my sister calls for me,
Tell her to meet me at Galilee.
You ought o' been there four thousand years,
Drinking of the wine.

3. If my mother calls for me,
Tell her death has silenced me.
You ought o' been there four thousand years,
Drinking of the wine.

From: Loyal Jones, Minstrel of the Appalachians: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1984; University of Kentucky Press, 2002, p. 220; with music); Notes--"Fragment mistakenly listed in Brown III 48 as a drinking song. 'I [Lunsford] heard this in 1903 at a Children's Day Program in a Negro congregation in the Yadkin Valley, Wilkes County, N.C.'"(p. 157)

~Masato