Lord I couldn’t hear nobody pray
I couldn’t hear nobody pray
Oh, way down yonder by myself
And I couldn’t hear nobody pray
Chilly Waters
Couldn’t hear nobody pray
In the Jordon
Couldn’t hear nobody pray
Crossing over
Couldn’t hear nobody pray
Into Cannon
I started this series with a discussion on the Spirituals in general, and the song “I’ve been Buked,” in particular. This week I want to stay with the Spirituals and focus on their innovative nature as coded forms of communication.
To be an enslaved person in America was to be oppressed on multiple levels: physically, socially, politically, etc. In that context, critique or resistance could not be done openly without the threat of swift and harsh retribution by the slave state. Therefore, enslaved Blacks had to practice resistance and critique through other, more subtle means, one of which was through the spirituals. To the slaveholder it was just music, but to the enslaved it was more.
We see this in songs like “I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray.” This was considered a code song, which meant it doubled as a religious song as well as one that gave instructions to slaves who planned to escape. This particular song was utilized when an escape plan had been foiled. Sometimes, a person was responsible for going to a predetermined location to listen or watch for a signal that an escape plan was still on. However, if that person did not see or hear the signal, he or she would come back and sing this song to let others know that the plan, or prayer for relief, if you will, was off.
Other spirituals worked this way. Take for instance the songs “Steal Away” and “Wade in the Water,” these songs signaled to the enslaved that there was a plan to escape. The imagery of invoked in the line “God is going to trouble the water,” in “Wade in the Water,” alludes to biblical passages where God brought deliverance through troubling the water (e.g. Red Sea, pool of Bethesda). I imagine the enslaved blacks saw the escape plan as God troubling the figurative water to bring about their deliverance from their bondage.
In addition to relaying hidden messages of deliverance, some spirituals provided an avenue for the enslaved to publicly critique the slaveholders without the slaveholders’ awareness. In the song “I Got a Robe” (also referred to as “I Got Shoes”) for example, the verse sings, “I gotta robe, you gotta robe. All God chillun gotta robe. When I get to heaven gonna put on my robe, gonna walk all over God’s heaven…Everybody talkin’ bout heaven ain’t going to heaven.”
These lyrics do at least two things: (1) serve as a declaration by the enslaved of their equality to the slaveholder and (2) calls out the slaveholders for not living according to their purported Christian values. The line “I gotta robe, you gotta robe, all God chillun gotta robe,” is an assertion that all children of God, regardless of race or station, are equal in that they have been given the same thing (ie a robe) and will all end up in the same place (ie “walk around heaven”). The chorus that sings, “everybody talking ‘bout heaven aint going to heaven,” calls out the blatant hypocrisy of white Christian slaveholders who claim to practice the love Christ while also brutalizing their Black slaves. They speak of heaven, but in the end, their actions will lead cause them to forfeit heaven.
As we continue in the series, we will see how black music continues to be a site of resistance and calling out of injustice. Next time I will move from the Spirituals into another genre that is just as important in Black American history.
–Until Next Time—
Palooke
Great content! Keep up the good work!