Looking forward to hearing it. I hope to hear a tie to other spirituals I know.

But-- the best we can say about most songs that might be spirituals is that they might be spirituals. The whole genre is one of speculation, because of the several conditions in place at the time. And because part of the point of the genre was improvisation, new songs could and did flow out of them at any point in time. (Image of squeezing what we think is an orange and finding a river of colors and flavors that never stops flowing.)

Sorry I can't be more definitive! The more I study them and sing them, the less a "definitive" approach seems possible or healthy! :~) I like the messiness of it! :~)

Attribution problems, about how to indicate whether something is or isn't a spiritual, can be solved by just using something like this line: "Believed to be a spiritual" or "Said to be an old spiritual."

~Susan