Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home

Subject: Lyr Add: I BELIEVE I'LL GO BACK HOME^^
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 03:47 PM

I BELIEVE I'LL GO BACK HOME

Cho.
I believe I'll go back home (3 times)
An' acknowledge I done wrong.

When I was in my father's house,
I was well-supplied;
I made a mistake in doin' well,
An' now I'm dissatisfied.

When I was in my father's house,
I had peace all the time;
But when I left home an' went astray,
I had to feed the swine.

When the prodigal son first left home,
He was feelin' happy an' gay;
But he soon found out a riotous life
Was more than he could pay.

When I was in my father's house,
I had bread enough to spare;
But now I am naked an' hungry, too,
An' I am ashamed to go back there.

When I left home I was in royal robes,
An' sumptuously fed;
But I soon got ragged an' hungry, too,
An' come back home so sad.

When I get home I'll confess my sins,
And father's love embrace;
I'm no more worthy to be called thy son,
I'll seek a servant's place.

When his father saw him comin',
He met him with a smile;
He threw his arms around him
"Here comes my lovin' child!"

He spake unto his servants-
"Go kill the fatted calf;
An' call my friends an' neighbors,
My son has come at last."

His older son got jealous
An' he began to say:
"You did more for my brother,
Who left an' went away."

He spake unto his elder son-
It was with an humble mind-
"Son, you have always been with me,
An' all I have is thine."

They met together rejoicing,
I imagine it was fine;
The old man he got happy,
An' he was satisfied in mind.

Words and music in Grissom, M. A., 1930, The Negro Sings a New Heaven, p. 36-36. Listed as a spiritual in the Cleveland Index. This song is apparently the source for Dock Bogg's Prodigal Son, (click). It is placed in a new thread here to make it more easily harvestable for the Spirituals project. Grissom states "This is an excellent version of the many Negro songs about the "Prodigal Son."
@religion @spiritual @gospel
^^

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 02:52 PM

Also see lyrics posted by Roger in Baltimore here (click) (two versions), and by Charlie Baum here (click)
Can't say I understand why this version has to be in a thread all by itself.
-Joe Offer, grumpily-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:12 PM

Joe, sorry you have to 'buke me. The Boggs version is white; I gave the clickie because of the contrast. The Josh White is folkish; my post could have gone with the version by Wilkins. I thought WYSIWYG would prefer it this way since the version I posted is listed as a spiritual in the Index.
I have put several Ezekiels together in one thread, as I am doing with many of these.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:29 PM

Ayup, Dicho - you've been 'buked and scorned - but mildly.
I appreciate seeing all these songs posted, but this place would be much easier to navigate if related songs were put together in threads, with the subject name of the message changed to reflect the name of that particular song.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 08:46 PM

I know two recordings with the same title "I Believe I'll Go Back Home". The one recorded in 1929 (very scratchy) by Blind Willie Davis (vcl/gtr) is on V.A., Gospel Classics 1927-1931 (Document DOCD-5190). Another, recorded in 1955, is reissued on The Famous Davis Sister (P-Vine (Japan) PCD-4921). The similarities, however, seem to be only the title and general theme.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 09:02 PM

Rather, Davis Sisters.

On the first one by Blind Willie Davis, Paul Oliver says: it "was a sung monologue apparently based on the white song, Where Is my Wandering Boy Tonight?", quoting from the Davis version (Songsters and Saints, p. 212):

I saw my old mother,
An' I was sittin' at the winder,
And a house full of sobbin'
And a house full of moanin' too.
Goin' down the street,
She wonderin' "Where is my boy tonight?"
And I wonder where he's gone--
Go and see if you can find him.

~Masato

Subject: Lyr Add: THE PRODIGAL SON (Rev Robert Wilkins)^^
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 09:37 PM

And let's not forget the Reverend Robert Wilkins version made famous by the Rolling Stones on "Beggars Banquet"---many middle class white kids' first introduction to the blues!:


"THE PRODIGAL SON"

Well a poor boy took his father's bread and started down the road
Started down the road
Took all he had and started down the road
Going out in this world, where God only knows
And that'll be the way to get along

Well poor boy spent all he had, famine come in the land
Famine come in the land
Spent all he had and famine come in the land
Said, "I believe I'll go and hire me to some man"
And that'll be the way I'll get along

Well, man said, "I'll give you a job for to feed my swine
For to feed my swine
I'll give you a job for to feed my swine"
Boy stood there and hung his head and cried
`Cause that is no way to get along

Said, "I believe I'll ride, believe I'll go back home
Believe I'll go back home
Believe I'll ride, believe I'll go back home
Or down the road as far as I can go"
And that'll be the way to get along

Well, father said, "See my son coming home to me
Coming home to me"
Father ran and fell down on his knees
Said, "Sing and praise, Lord have mercy on me"
Mercy

Oh poor boy stood there, hung his head and cried
Hung his head and cried
Poor boy stood and hung his head and cried
Said, "Father will you look on me as a child?"
Yeah

Well father said, "Eldest son, kill the fatted calf,
Call the family round
Kill that calf and call the family round
My son was lost but now he is found
'Cause that's the way for us to get along"
Hey

Line Breaks
added.
-Joe Offer-

^^

Subject: Info: Prodigal Son
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 10:46 PM

Here's what's in the Traditional Ballad Index
-Joe Offer-

---

Prodigal Son (I)

DESCRIPTION: Prodigal son, starving, decides to return home. His father embraces him, saying, "Kill the fatted calf." The elder son is jealous, but the father reassures him that he will inherit. Chorus: "I believe I'll go back home/And acknowledge I've done wrong"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: homesickness jealousy home separation return reunion Bible family father brother
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
RECORDINGS:
Dock Boggs, "Prodigal Son" (on Boggs1, BoggsCD1)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I Believe I'll Go Back Home
Notes: This should not be confused with Rev. Robert Wilkins' song "That's No Way to Get Along", also a retelling of Luke 15:11-32; Wilkins' song was recorded by the Rolling Stones as "Prodigal Son." - PJS
In addition to the songs mentioned above, there are a number of hymns which speak of the prodigal son (a title not found in the Bible, we might note; a few translations mention the youth's "prodigal living," but the King James Version is not one of them), and the boy's exploits occasionally come up in other songs. - RBW
File: RcPS1

---

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Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 11:12 PM

The version posted by Roger in Baltimore, and by Desdemona, are apparently from the Rolling Stones (Use click given by Joe Offer for Roger's post, threadid 16283); a version as sung by Rev. Robert Wilkins will be posted on that thread shortly.
An earlier blues version by Wilkins was titled That's no Way To Get Along (1929).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 12:05 AM

I have posted the original (?) Wilkins' Prodigal Son in the same thread as Roger's (Joe Offer's "Click" given above). He apparently made changes in different performances. I hope to post the earlier (1929) That's No Way To Get Along, if I can find it, in the same thread.
Everybody knows, I think, that Wilkins worked for a long time in blues before he turned to religious themes. He used some of the same ideas in both, but the treatments are very different.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 12:37 AM

THAT'S NO WAY TO GET ALONG was posted by Gargoyle in 1999.
Here

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 09:05 PM

Once again, so much of the fun is in finding so many takes on the same essential song!

"The Prickle Holly Bush" and all its variants is a current source of obsessive fascination with me.....I expect I'll get better eventually ;-) !

Subject: Lyr Add: AFFLICTIONS THOUGH THEY SEEM SEVERE
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 09:38 PM

The Sweet Songster (Old Regular Baptist hymnal, publ.1854 by Billups), has the prodigal son story with the first line (usually used as title) being, "Afflictions Though They Seem Severe." It is credited to Newton:

AFFLICTIONS THOUGH THEY SEEM SEVERE
(Newton)

Afflictions though they seem severed
In mercy oft are sent.
They stopp'd the prodigal's career,
And caus'd him to repent.
Altho'he no relenting felt,
Till he had spent his store,
His stubborn heart began to melt,
When famine pinch'd him sore.

What have I gain'd by sin, he said,
But hunger, shame and fear;
My father's house abounds with bread,
While I am starving here.
I'll go and tell him all I've done,
And fall before his face-
Unworthy to be call'd a son,
I'll seek a servant's place.

His father saw him coming home
He saw, and ran, and smiled,
And threw him arms about the neck
Of his rebellious child.
Father, I've sinned, but O! forgive!
Enough, his father said;
Rejoice, my house, my son's alive
For whom I mourn'd as dead:-

Now let the fatted calf be slain,
And spread the news around,
My son was dead, but lives again,
Was lost, but now is found!
'Tis thus the Lord his love reveals
To call poor sinners home,
More than a father's love He feels,
And welcomes all that come.

The tune is major-key, it's pace is slow, story-telling style, heavily decorated. But speeded up, with a slightly different emphasis on the words, it is similar to our family tune to the ballad, "Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender." Fuel to the fire for the argument that went on as far back as I can remember, "Which came first, the hymn tunes or the ballit tunes?" Jean

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 09:43 PM

Joe- Typo in the first verse, first line, last word- should be: severe (NOT severed!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 10:51 PM

John Newton's "The Prodigal Son" (in Olney Hymns, vol. 1, 1779) is HERE. PRODIGAL SON (Tune: E. J. King, 1844; Lyrics: John Newton, 1779) is in The Sacred Harp (CLICK HERE). TENESSEE (Baptist Harmony, p. 227) is in Southern Harmony (CLICK HERE.

There are four tunes to "Afflictions though they seem severe" in George Pullen Jackson's books.

(1) TENNESSEE (Hesperian Harp 140). In Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America, no. 24. The words are almost identical with those Jean posted.

(2) PRODIGAL (Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony 35). In SFSEA, no. 49.

(3) RETURNING PRODIGAL (Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist, 1846, p. 140). In Another Sheaf of White Spirituals, no. 109.

(4) PRODIGAL'S RETURN (Wesleyan Psalmonist, 1842, p. 8). In ASWS, no. 110.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 11:48 AM

I Believe I'll Go Back Home, indexed

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: I Believe I'll Go Back Home
From: Janie
Date: 16 Aug 15 - 11:06 AM

I suppose I should not thank a spammer, but haven't seen this thread before. Reflecting on Jean's comments (r.i.p.) A bit of thread drift reflecting on her comment. I have my grandfather's worn "Sweet Songster." Have long been struck by the many lyrics that really are more ballad than hymn, though all have some religious message or christian reference.