The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40272   Message #577868
Posted By: masato sakurai
23-Oct-01 - 12:04 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Somebody's Buried in the Graveyard
Subject: Lyr Add: Somebody's Buried in the Graveyard
Sorry, no sound recordings in my possesion. No item under this title in Blues and Gospel Records 1890-1943 (Oxford). Only reference in Brunnings, Folk Song Index and the Cleveland Public Library's Index to Spirituals is to the Work book. However, there's another worksong version (with no music) in John Lovell, Jr., Black Song (p. 531):

As far back as May 1916 there was an article on the recording of spirituals in the Literay Digest. George A. Miller was reported in this article as trying to get down songs he had heard on his father's plantation. Two of the recorded songs were reproduced: "Trouble Gwine ter War'y Me Down" and "Somebody Buried in de Graveyard." The latter song, according to the report, was sung by three cotton hoers as they went up and down the long cotton rows, keeping time with their hoes. Its words were as follows:

Somebody buried in de graveyard,
Somebody buried in de sea;
Gwine ter git up in de mornin' shoutin'
Gwine ter sound de jubilee.
If you git dare befo' I do,
You run an' tell de Lord,
I'm er comin' on too--Oh!
Somebody dyin' in de mount'in'
Somebody dyin' in de baid,
Gwine ter git up in de mornin' shoutin'
Gwine ter rise up from de daid.
If you git dare befo' I do,
You run an' tell de Lord,
I'm er comin' on too.

~Masato