Lyr Req: Prepare Me One Body (arr Roland Hayes)

Subject: Lyr Req: Prepare Me One Body
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 03:43 PM

HEAR A CLIP from Artemis Classics CD, "Charlton Heston Reads The New Testament (Disc 2: Afroamerican Religious Folk Songs), with Charlton Heston (spoken word) and Roland Hayes (songs).

Listed by this title in two songbooks: "My Songs" and Roland Hayes' "My Favorite Spirituals." I have the Hayes book on order but I'd like to do this next week. I can figure out a tune but I'd like to know what the rest of the lyric is, and whether Hayes composed this for the Heston project or whether it is actually an old spiritual and if so, what Hayes says about it. The theology is kinda questionable, but it's such a good song!

Partial lyric, from clip, below.

~S~

===============================================================

PREPARE ME ONE BODY

REFRAIN?
Prepare me one body,
I'll go down, I'll go down.
Prepare me one body like Man;
I'll go down and die.

VERSE?
The man of sorrow....

SH

@spiritual

Title(s) above has been entered for indexing in the AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUALS PERMATHREAD.

If songs with new TITLES are added to this thread, please take a moment to post that title and this thread's ID number (or full URL) in the AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUALS PERMATHREAD, so it can be included when the index is updated. Thanks! ~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Prepare Me One Body
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Mar 05 - 11:38 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Prepare Me One Body
From: wysiwyg
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 07:38 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Prepare Me One Body
From: GUEST,Costanza
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 05:41 PM

This song was recorded by Calvin Marsh on the LP "Let us Break Bread Together." I heard him sing it when I was a child at a small concert he gave. I never forgot it.
Weeping melody, beautiful words.

Subject: Lyr Add: PREPARE ME ONE BODY (arr Roland Hayes)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 09:11 PM

Lyr. Add: PREPARE ME ONE BODY
Arr. Roland Hayes, voice and piano.

Tranquillo- with smooth rhythmic flow.

Prepare me one body,-
I'll go down,
I'll go down,
Prepare me one body like man;-
I'll go down and die.

The man of sorrows, sinner, see;-
I'll go down,
I'll go down,
He died for you an' he died for me,-
I'll go down an' die.

Prepare me, Lord, one body !-
Prepare me one body, like man !-
I'll go down an' die !

Introduction by Roland Hayes-
"A sort of prologue to "The Life of Christ" series is the beautiful Afamerican folk song, "Prepare Me One Body." The original of the text of this song is not to be found in any of the Gospels and Prophhecies. But I believe it to be a dramatization by our early Afamerican preachers of such Biblical elements as are found in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (II.5-8):
....Christ Jesus: who...took upon him the form of a servant....was made in the likeness of men....humbled himself....became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

Pp. 96-97, Roland Hayes, My Favorite Spirituals: 30 Songs for Voice and Piano, Arranged and Interpreted by Roland Hayes.

Not listed in the Index to Negro Spirituals by the Cleveland Public Library, CBMR Monographs, No. 3.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Prepare Me One Body
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Sep 11 - 09:32 PM

I cannot find earlier publication of this song than Roland Hayes, 1948, "My Songs: Aframerican Religious Folk Songs Arranged and Interpreted by Roland Hayes," Little, Brown and Company, An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Boston.
It is part of the Roland Hayes song cycle, "Life of Christ."

Both Roland Hayes and Charles Heston may be heard on Yahoo! Music, singing this song.