Q, maybe my spirit knew that this song was from the Caribbean because my maternal grandmother was from Barbados and my maternal grandfather was from Trinidad.

But, I didn't guess Barbados so I guess I didn't guess that good, did I?

**

That "genetic memory" theory [which is me being facetious], initially that song reminded me of the African American spiritual "My Lord is so high/You can't go over Him/so low/You can't go under Him/so wide/You can't go around Him/you must come in at the door.

But somehow, that didn't seem to fit. I then thought of the song "One More River To Cross". There's a number of songs with this title, including this one credited to the Soul Stirrers http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/soul_stirrers/one_more_river-lyrics-1154971.html. And there's also this African American folk song:
Old Noah once he build the ark,
There's one more river to cross,
And pathed it up with hickory bark,
There's one more river to cross etc.
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/One_More_River.htm

However, those weren't the versions that I had in the back of my mind. It was only through searching that I realized that I wasn't thinking of any song titled "One More River To Cross" but the song "Many Rivers To Cross" that was popularized by the Jamaican Reggae singer Jimmy Cliff

Here's a link to the YouTube video of this powerful song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkMzuXlKQv8&feature=related
Jimmy Cliff Many Rivers To Cross Video: 1989 Jamaica -

-snip-

Another reason why I thought that the song "Can't Cross Over {River Come Down}" might be Caribbean was the line "she give the eye". While that line does refer to the "evil eye", it also reminded me of "giving the cut eye" {a Caribbean and maybe a Southern African American phrase}. In New Jersey where I grew up and in Western Pennsylvania where I've lived for years, African Americans say "cut her [or his] eyes at me {or someone else}, but I haven't heard or seen any usage of the phrase someone else "the cut eye". However, the gesture is definitely familiar to me.

Here's a link to two definitions of "cut eye" as well as examples of "cut eye" and "cut [his] eyes at me" in sentences http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cut-eye

I thought the phrase "she gives the eye" sounded like a Caribbean phrase, though, as I mentioned in a previous post to this thread, that grammatical construct could be said to be vernacular African American or African for that matter.

But the truth of the matter is, when you get right down to it, I thought that "Can't Cross Over {River Come Down" was Caribbean because it felt that way to me. And I am learning to trust my inituition.

So then, Q, you may have been facetious when you asked me why I felt "Can't Cross Over {River Come Down" had Caribbean origins. But I given you a serious answer. But I haveta say that I liked the "Snick Nyuk" phrase at the end of your 20 Jun 08 - 11:45 PM post.

[For those who didn't "get" Q's ending with "Snick, Nyuk", it's a continuation of a lighthearted exchange from another current Mudcat thread. There's a series of posts that are part of this lighthearted exchange, but it starts with this one: thread.cfm?threadid=112122&messages=22#2370349]