The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #98518 Message #1952301
Posted By: wysiwyg
30-Jan-07 - 08:48 AM
Thread Name: Holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya'
Subject: RE: Holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya'
There are no judgment calls or compromises in the Spirituals Permathread such as you suggest, Azizi. Threads are added to the index whenever someone posts a note to it that a song needs to be added. It's a routine matter. Some of us working on the project also comb through old threads looking for things that should be added-- songs that were posted before Mudcat had any permathreads at all, much less the Spirituals one-- but for suggestions such as yours, a simple note to the permathread of a song title and a threadid number where it appears (or whole URL)is all that's needed.
So if you'd like to do a Mudcat search and find the thread(s) where the lyric text appears, I'll be happy to add it. If you want this discussion added as well, include this thread's thread ID or whole URL.
Also, there's no need to add a question mark. As the permathread states:
The goal of this index is to make it easier to search for information about individual songs from the widely-defined "Negro Spirituals" tradition. This means that even when there is doubt as to the "authentic" nature of a specific song, the song will be listed in this index.
In other words, being listed here does not mean that diligent scholarship has ensured that any specific song is a "spiritual" in whatever sense any one individual might mean the term... it means, "Here is a place where we can look up titles we know or run across, and see what others have said, and add what we know-- or ask questions."
The scholarship will be in the THREADS, not in this index... the index is merely a means of facilitating our continued study.
BTW, the Spirituals permathread is about halfway through a massive, long-overdue re-organiztion right now. I hope folks will take a LOOK.
On a personal note--
As far as people's dismissive attitude about the song, I feel the same way when it is sung in a sappy manner, just as I do about Amazing Grace. They're overworked and too "precious." ("De Colores" is another overworked item, IMO, sung by many who have no multicultural relationships at all!) But I heard a rockin' version of Kumbaya once that I really liked, and it's a great floating-verse song to use in the car when I have personal stuff to work through.
Thanks,
~Susan