Kumbaya

Last updated

"Kum ba yah"
Come By Here Kumbaya Transcription of 1926 recording.jpg
"Come By Here", transcribed by J. Cutting from the singing of H. Wylie, 1926
Song
Recorded1926, H. Wylie
Genre Gospel, spiritual
Gnome-mime-audio-openclipart.svg
Come By Here / Kum Ba Ya / Kumbaya
Earliest known recording (1926)
Problems playing this file? See media help.

"Kum ba yah" ("Come by here") is an African American spiritual of disputed origin, known to have been sung in the Gullah culture of the islands off South Carolina and Georgia, with ties to enslaved Central Africans. Originally an appeal to God to come to the aid of those in need, [1] the song is thought to have spread from the islands to other Southern states and the North, as well as to other places outside the United States.

Contents

The first known recording was made by folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon in 1926. It features an unaccompanied tenor voice identified only as "H. Wylie," singing in the Gullah dialect. The piece became a standard campfire song in Scouting and summer camps and enjoyed broader popularity during the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. In American politics, the song title gave rise to the phrase "sing Kumbaya," denoting unrealistic, excessively optimistic attempts at compromise.

Origins

According to Library of Congress editor Stephen Winick, the song almost certainly originated among African Americans in the Southeastern United States. A Gullah version emerged early in its history, even if the song did not originate in that dialect. [1] The two oldest versions whose year of origin is known for certain were both collected in 1926, and both reside in the Library's American Folklife Center. No precise month or day was recorded for either version, so either may be the earliest known version of the song. One was submitted as a high-school collecting project by a student named Minnie Lee to her teacher, Julian P. Boyd, later a professor of history at Princeton University and president of the American Historical Association. This version, collected in Alliance, North Carolina, is a manuscript featuring lyrics but no music. The other 1926 version was recorded on a wax cylinder by Robert Winslow Gordon, founder of what began as the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song, which became the American Folklife Center. The singer's name was H. Wylie, and the song was recorded within a few hours' drive of Darien, Georgia, although Gordon did not note the exact location. Between 1926 and 1928, Gordon recorded three more versions of traditional spirituals with the refrain "come by here" or "come by heah". One of these is a different song concerning the story of Daniel in the den of lions. Of the other two, one has been lost, and one cylinder was broken, so it cannot be determined if they are versions of "Kumbaya". [1]

According to an article in Kodaly Envoy by Lum Chee-Hoo, some time between 1922 and 1931, members of the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals [2] collected a version from the South Carolina coast. [3] "Come by Yuh", as they called it, was sung in Gullah, the creole language spoken by the formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, as well as The Bahamas. [4] It is possible this is the earliest version, if it was collected before 1926. Because the individual songs in this society's publications are not dated, however, it cannot be dated with certainty to before 1931. [1]

In May 1936, John Lomax, Gordon's successor as head of the Archive of Folk Song, discovered a woman named Ethel Best singing "Come by Here" with a group in Raiford, Florida. [5]

These facts contradict the longstanding copyright and authorship attribution to the white Anglo-American songwriter Reverend Marvin V. Frey (1918–1992), [3] who claimed to have written the song circa 1936 under the title "Come By Here", inspired, he said, by a prayer he heard delivered by "Mother Duffin", a storefront evangelist in Portland, Oregon. It first appeared in this version in Revival Choruses of Marvin V. Frey, a lyric sheet printed in that city in 1939. In an interview at the Library of Congress quoted by Winick, [1] Frey said the change of the title to "Kum Ba Yah" came about in 1946, when a missionary family named Cunningham returned from Africa. where they had sung Frey's version. According to Frey, they brought back a partly translated version, and "Kum Ba Yah" was an African phrase from Angola (specifically in Luvale). Frey said the Cunninghams then toured America singing the song with the text "Kum Ba Yah". [1]

The story of an African origin for the phrase circulated in several versions, spread also by the revival group the Folksmiths, whose liner notes for the song stated that "Kum Ba Yah" was brought to America from Angola. [1] As Winick points out, however:

According to Frey, then, the pronunciation "Kum Ba Yah" originated when Luvale-speaking people in Angola and Zaire translated "Come by Here" into their language. That strains credibility on several levels, primarily that "Come by Here" translated into Luvale would not be "Kum Ba Yah"; indeed, for "Come by Here" to translate to "Kum Ba Yah," the target language would have to be a creole with English as one of its main components, and no such language was common in Angola (then still a Portuguese colony) or Zaire (a country formerly colonized by Belgium, whose primary colonial language was French) in the 1930s. Moreover, the AFC's cylinder recording of H. Wylie shows that we have no need of such a story. In Wylie's dialect, which is most likely a form of Gullah, the word "here" is pronounced as "yah," rendering the song's most repeated line "come by yah," a phrase that can be phonetically rendered as either "Kum Ba Yah" or "Kumbaya." [1]

Although it is often said that the song originated in Gullah, Winick further points out that the Boyd manuscript, which may be the earliest version of the song, was probably not collected from a Gullah speaker. [1]

A 45-rpm recording in a contemporary gospel style was released in 1958 by Little Sugar and the Hightower Brothers as "Come by Here", on the Savoy label (backed with "At the Golden Gate").[ citation needed ]

Folk music revival and the civil rights movement

The Folksmiths, including Joe Hickerson, recorded the song in 1957, [6] as did Pete Seeger in 1958. [7] Hickerson credits Tony Saletan, then a songleader at the Shaker Village Work Camp, for introducing him to "Kumbaya". [1] Saletan had learned it from Lynn Rohrbough, co-proprietor with his wife Katherine of the camp songbook publisher Cooperative Recreation Service, predecessor to World Around Songs. [3] [5] [8] [9] (Hickerson later succeeded Gordon and Lomax at the American Folklife Center, successor to the Archive of Folk Song.) [10] Saletan himself never recorded the song, but he can be heard singing and discussing it in a 2017 podcast interview. [11] The song enjoyed newfound popularity during the American folk music revival of the early to mid-1960s, largely due to Joan Baez's 1962 recording of the song, [12] and became associated with the civil rights movement of that decade. For example, there is a recording of marchers singing the song as "Come By Here" during the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery (Alabama) march for voting rights. [13]

Political usage

The title of the song is often used sarcastically in English-speaking countries, either to make fun of spirituality and interpersonal relationships or to criticize their superficiality.

Beginning in the 1990s and increasing in the following decades, references to "Kumbaya" or "singing 'Kumbaya'" entered idiomatic usage in the politics of the United States, often to suggest that someone other than the speaker is too conciliatory or eager to compromise. [14] [15] Richard Vatz has characterized these references to the song as sarcastic criticism of consensus "that allegedly does not examine the issues or is revelatory of cockeyed optimism." [14]

For example, in discussing the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, U.S. President Barack Obama commented that the substantive disagreements between the parties "can't be reduced to somehow a matter of let's all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya.'" [16] Many other high-profile political figures have similarly referred derisively to the singing of the song as a way of expressing doubt or disparagement for potential compromise. [15] Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee explained his skepticism that ideologically aligned candidates in the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries would unite around a single individual by saying, "there's not going to be some magic moment at which three or four of these people sit around a campfire toasting marshmallows, singing 'Kumbaya' and giving the nod to one of their competitors." [17] Businessman and political candidate Herman Cain, speaking to a rally in 2011, said, "Singing ‘Kumbaya’ is not a foreign policy strategy." [14]

Lyrics

Version No. 1 [18] Version No. 2 [19] Version No. 3Version No. 4 [20]

Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Someone need you, Lord, come by here
Someone need you, Lord, come by here
Someone need you, Lord, come by here
Oh, Lord, come by here.

For the sun, that rises in the sky
For the rhythm of the falling rain
For all life, great or small
For all that's true, for all you do.

Someone's laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Hear me crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Hear me crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Hear me crying, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Now I need you, Lord, come by here
Sinners need you, Lord, come by here
Sinners need you, Lord, come by here
Oh, Lord, come by here.

Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's crying, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Hear me singing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Hear me singing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Hear me singing, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Come by here, my Lord, come by here,
Come by here, my Lord, come by here,
Come by here, my Lord, come by here,
Oh, Lord, come by here.

Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Someone's praying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's praying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's praying, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Hear me praying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Hear me praying, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Hear me praying, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

In the mornin' see, Lord, come by here,
In the mornin' see, Lord, come by here,
In the mornin' see, Lord, come by here,
Oh, Lord, come by here.

For the second on this world you made,
For the love that will never fade,
For a heart beating with joy,
For all that's real, for all we feel.

Someone's singing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's singing, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Someone's singing, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Oh, I need you, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Oh, I need you, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Oh, I need you, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

I gon' need you, Lord, come by here,
I gon' need you, Lord, come by here,
I gon' need you, Lord, come by here,
Oh, Lord, come by here.

Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

Oh, Sinners need you, Lord, come by here,
Sinners need you, Lord, come by here,
Sinners need you, Lord, come by here,
Oh my Lord, won't you come by here.

Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord, kum bay ya,
O Lord, kum bay ya.

In the morning - morning, won't you come by here
Mornin' - morning, won't you come by here
In the Mornin' - morning, won't you come by here
Oh, Lord, come by here.

Additional stanzas by Barry Moore (1973), in the songbook Sing and Rejoice, Herald Press (1979):

In Your Body, Lord, we are one.
In Your Body, Lord, we are one.
In Your Body, Lord, we are one.
O Lord, we are one.

In his banquet, Lord, we find strength.
In his banquet, Lord, we find strength.
In his banquet, Lord, we find strength.
O Lord, we find strength.

Draw us nearer, Lord, each to each.
Draw us nearer, Lord, each to each.
Draw us nearer, Lord, each to each.
O Lord, each to each.

Fill our mind, Lord, with Your peace.
Fill our mind, Lord, with Your peace.
Fill our mind, Lord, with Your peace.
O Lord, with Your peace.

Undivided, Lord, we shall stand.
Undivided, Lord, we shall stand.
Undivided, Lord, we shall stand.
O Lord, we shall stand.

See also

Related Research Articles

Spirituals is a genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged varied African cultural influences with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs", work songs, and plantation songs that evolved into the blues and gospel songs in church. In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s, the emancipation altering mainly the nature of slavery for many. Many new derivative music genres such as the blues emerged from the spirituals songcraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gullah language</span> Creole language of southern US

Gullah is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people, an African American population living in coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia as well as extreme northeastern Florida and the extreme southeast of North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American music</span> Musical traditions of African American people

African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Its origins are in musical forms that developed as a result of the enslavement of African Americans prior to the American Civil War. It has been said that "every genre that is born from America has black roots."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gullah</span> African American ethnic group in south United States

The Gullah are a subgroup of the African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and culture have preserved a significant influence of Africanisms as a result of their historical geographic isolation and the community's relation to its shared history and identity.

The Archive of Folk Culture was established in 1928 as the first national collection of American folk music in the United States of America. It was initially part of the Music Division of the Library of Congress and now resides in the American Folklife Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Folklife Center</span> Research center

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a repository for American folk music. The center and its collections have grown to encompass all aspects of folklore and folklife worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael, Row the Boat Ashore</span> Folk song based on a Sea Islands spiritual

"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" is a traditional spiritual first noted during the American Civil War at St. Helena Island, one of the Sea Islands of South Carolina. The best-known recording was released in 1960 by the U.S. folk band The Highwaymen; that version briefly reached number-one hit status as a single.

"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" is a traditional African-American spiritual, first published in 1927. It became an international pop hit in 1957–58 in a recording by English singer Laurie London, which is one of the best-selling gospel songs of all time. The song has also been recorded by many other singers and choirs, including Mahalia Jackson, Marian Anderson, Judy Garland and Nina Simone.

The Luvale people, also spelled Lovale, Balovale, Lubale, as well as Lwena or Luena in Angola, are a Bantu ethnic group found in northwestern Zambia and southeastern Angola. They are closely related to the Lunda and Ndembu to the northeast, but they also share cultural similarities to the Kaonde to the east, and to the Chokwe and Luchazi, important groups of eastern Angola.

"Gospel Plow" is a traditional African American spiritual. It is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index, number 10075. The title is biblical, based on Luke 9:62.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Winslow Gordon</span>

Robert Winslow Gordon was an American academic, known as a collector of folk songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen</span> African-American spiritual song

"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" is an African-American spiritual song that originated during the period of slavery but was not published until 1867. The song is well known and many cover versions of it have been recorded by artists such as Marian Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Harry James, Paul Robeson, and Sam Cooke among others.

"Good Shepherd" is a traditional song, best known as recorded by Jefferson Airplane on their 1969 album Volunteers. It was arranged and sung by the group's lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, who described their interpretation of it as psychedelic folk-rock.

The Shaker Village Work Group was a recreational summer camp and teen educational program that occupied historic Shaker land and buildings in New Lebanon, New York. The property was purchased by founders Jerome (Jerry) and Sybil A. Count from the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village community in 1946, and was opened to its first group of young "villagers" as the Shaker Village Work Camp in 1947. Around 1960, the Work Camp's name was changed to the Shaker Village Work Group. Operating until 1973, the Shaker Village Work Group was noteworthy as a program that gave urban youths the opportunity to learn skilled hands-on work through folk crafts, for its efforts to preserve Shaker architecture and culture, for its role in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s, and for its influence on the 1960s counterculture movement.

Anthony D. Saletan, known professionally as Tony Saletan, is an American folk singer, children's instructional television pioneer, and music educator. Saletan is responsible for the modern rediscovery, in the mid-1950s, of two of the genre's best-known songs, "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and "Kumbaya". In 1955, he was the first performer to appear on Boston's educational television station, WGBH. In 1969, Saletan was the first musical guest to appear on Sesame Street.

Come and Praise is a hymnal published by the BBC and widely used in collective worship in British schools. The hymnal was compiled by Geoffrey Marshall-Taylor with musical arrangements by Douglas Coombes, and includes well-known hymns such as “Oil in My Lamp”, “Kum Ba Yah” and “Water of Life” as well as Christmas carols and Easter hymns.

<i>Up Close and Personal</i> (Judith Durham album) 2009 studio album by Judith Durham

Up Close and Personal is the ninth studio album by Australian recording artist Judith Durham. The album was released in Australia in May 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janie Hunter</span> American singer and storyteller

Janie Hunter was an American singer and storyteller who worked to preserve Gullah culture and folkways in her home of Johns Island, South Carolina. She received a 1984 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in recognition of her contributions to folk art and traditions.

Griffin Lotson is an African-American historian, born in Crescent, Georgia. He is a seventh-generation Gullah Geechee. He serves as a councilman and the mayor pro-tem in Darien, Georgia. He also manages the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters. He is the national Federal Government vice-chairman and former treasurer of the federal Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madelyn Sheppard</span> American pianist, singer, and composer

Madelyn Sheppard was an American pianist, singer, and composer from Selma, Alabama. She frequently collaborated with lyricist Annelu Burns on spirituals and blues songs, including creating music for the theater and film industries. She composed the score for the 1922 Broadway musical, Just Because, which "may well have been the first full-length Broadway musical authored entirely by women", according to the Library of Congress.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Winick, Stephen (Summer–Fall 2010). "The World's First 'Kumbaya' Moment: New Evidence about an Old Song" (PDF). Folklife Center News, Library of Congress . Retrieved March 1, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Gullah Spirituals". The Society for the Preservation of Spirituals. Retrieved December 23, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 Jeffery, Weiss (November 12, 2006). "'Kumbaya': How did a sweet simple song become a mocking metaphor?". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on September 14, 2008. Retrieved July 17, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Mama Lisa'a World-Kumbaya" . Retrieved November 1, 2008.
  5. 1 2 Stern, Gary (June 27, 2009). ""Kumbaya, My Lord:" Why we sing it; why we hate it". The Journal News. Retrieved February 1, 2010.
  6. ↑ "Smithsonian Folkways, We've Got Some Singing to Do, FW02407" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 3, 2016. Retrieved January 4, 2015.
  7. ↑ Ruhlmann, William. "Pete Seeger and Sonny Terry at Carnegie Hall (1958)". AllMusic. Netaktion, LLC. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  8. ↑ Amy, Ernest F. (1957). Cooperative Recreation Service: A unique project. Midwest Folklore 7 (4, Winter): 202–6. ISSN 0737-7037. OCLC 51288821.
  9. ↑ "World Around Songs: Our History". Archived from the original on December 8, 2013. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
  10. ↑ Zorn, Eric (August 31, 2006). "Someone's dissin', Lord, kumbaya". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved January 11, 2008.
  11. ↑ Wilhelm, Dorothy (September 17, 2017). "Tony Saletan". Swimming Upstream Radio Show. Its Never Too Late. Retrieved November 29, 2024.
  12. ↑ Semioli, Tom. "Joan Baez in Concert, Pt. 1 (1962)". AllMusic. Netaktion, LLC. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Freedom Songs: Selma, Alabama". Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
  14. 1 2 3 Weeks, Linton (January 13, 2012). "When Did 'Kumbaya' Become Such A Bad Thing?". NPR.org. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  15. 1 2 Waldman, Katy (March 29, 2016). "How "Kumbaya" Went From Sincere Protest Song to Drippy Punch Line". Slate Magazine. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  16. ↑ "Obama says Netanyahu differences go beyond 'Kumbaya'". USA TODAY. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  17. ↑ Stephanopoulos, George (January 8, 2012). "Mike Huckabee Says Mitt Romney May Run Table to Nomination". ABC News. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  18. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : Mitra (September 6, 2009). "Kumbaya" (in English and Persian). YouTube.
  19. ↑ "Kumbaya, my Lord" (PDF). evangeliser.nu. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
  20. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : Sacro Capo (March 11, 2009). "Kumbaya my Lord". YouTube.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.