The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #46211   Message #2189480
Posted By: Jim Dixon
08-Nov-07 - 10:38 PM
Thread Name: Help: Old Blues lyrics question
Subject: RE: Help: Old Blues lyrics question
The song is also quoted in Langston Hughes' "Master of Miracles: A Gospel Song-Play Based on the Bible and the Negro Spirituals," 1962. The relevant quote is on page 408 of "The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, Volume 6: Gospel plays, operas, and later dramatic works," University of Missouri Press, 2004.

Hughes puts these lines in all caps. I'm guessing that's to indicate that these lines are sung, not spoken, but I have put them in lower case to make them easier to read:

WOMAN: Eve, where is Adam?
DEACON: Eve, where is Adam?
ELDER: Adam's in the garden picking up leaves.
WOMEN: Adam's in the garden picking up leaves.
ELDER: He didn't come soon in the morning,
  Neither in the heat of the day.
  He's come in the cool of the evening
  To wash my sins away.
SINGERS: Eve, where is Adam?
  Eve, where is Adam?
  Adam's in the garden picking up leaves…