Lyr. Add: DEEP RIVER
Arr. William Arms Fisher, 1916

Deep river, my home is over Jordan,-
Deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into camp-ground.

Deep river, my home is over Jordan,-
Deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into camp-ground.

Oh, don't you want to go to the gospel feast,
That promised land where all is peace,
Oh! don't you want to go to that promised land,
that land where all is peace?

Deep river, my home is over Jordan,-
Deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into camp-ground.

Full score, pp. 20-23, with closely followed piano transcription by Coleridge-Taylor. William Arms Fisher, Opus 19, no. 1, Nov. 28. 1916; William Arms Fisher, "Seventy Negro Spirituals" ed. for low voice, Oliver Ditson Company, 1926.
Fisher comments: "This melody first appeared in Jubilee Songs, Part II, compiled by Theodore F. Seward and George L. White in 1884. Here, without harmonization, it lay unrecognized until 1904, when the late Samuel Coleridge-Taylor transcribed it for the piano as one of "Twenty-four Negro Melodies, issued in the Musicians Library [Ditson]. .... The opening section with the words "Deep River, my home is over Jordan" is marked "Chorus" in Jubilee Songs, but the "Verse" section beginning- "Oh, don't you want to go to that gospel feast?" etc., consists largely of a four-times repeated phrase, and Coleridge-Taylor, in order to avoid its monotony and secure sufficient contrast, substituted for it a theme of his own invention. In 1916 Mr. Harry Burleigh issued his song arrangement of "Deep River" with an independent secont theme, and a few months later the Editor of this volume issued the version included in it, which follows closely the Coleridge-Taylor transcription. The original melody is pentatonic."

The lyrics from Dett, in the previous post, is essentially the version in Seward 1884. The Coleridge-Taylor revision is the one followed by many singers and choruses.

Notes by William Arms Fisher, to his arrangement of "Steal Away," p. 170-171, "Seventy Negro Spirituals."
"This pentatonic melody with a compass of a sixth was printed first in "Jubilee Songs, part I, 1872, and has seemed indidpensable to every collection published since. Mrs. Stella May Hill writes: "The song 'Steal away to Jesus' was one of the songs that would give notice of a religious meeting to be held at night after their masters had retired. They would in truth steal away to the woods or some unfrequented place to serve God and seek for consolation when burdened with sorrow and depression." This much loved song has a compass of but a sixth."