Early Published Versions Of The African American Spiritual "Soon I Will Be Done" (With The Trouble Of The World)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a two part pancococojams series on the African American religious song "Soon I Will Be Done" (with the troubles of the world").

Part I provides information about the early publication history of the Spiritual which is now known as "Soon I Will Be Done" (with the trouble of the world). Some text only examples of these early versions and a closely related Spiritual entitled "These All Our Father's Children" (Dese All My Fader's Children" are also included in this post. These comments and most of these lyric examples are quoted from a discussion thread for the Mudcat folk music forum.

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/09/eight-gospel-versions-of-soon-i-will-be.html for Part II of this series. Part II showcases eight YouTube renditions of "Soon I Will Be Done" (also given as "Trouble Of The World").

The content of this post is presented for religious, cultural, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composers of "Soon I Will Be Done" (with the troubles of the world). Thanks to all the early collectors and publishers of "Soon I Will Be Done" and other Spirituals and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
These complete comments and comment excerpts are given in the chronological order that they were published on Mudcat, and not in the order of the earliest publication dates for versions of "Soon I Will Be Done" (with the trouble of the world) or songs that are related to and are probably sources for that song.

These comments are numbered for referencing purposes only. I've added notes to the first comment to provide the lyrics to what may be the oldest published source song for "Soon I Will Be Done" which is entitled "These Are My Father's Children"*, I also added a comment to #5 to clarify the meaning of the words "written by".

*I don't use "Negro dialect" for this title or elsewhere in this post except in quotes. Also, note that "Negro" is no longer used as a referent for African Americans.

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COMMENTS FROM MUDCAT DISCUSSION THREAD ABOUT THE EARLY PUBLICATION HISTORY AFRICAN AMERICAN SONG "SOON I WILL BE DONE"

1. Subject: TROUBLE OF THE WORLD
From: GUEST,alex molina (BigABronx@aol.com)
Date: 27 Sep 01 - 10:37 AM

"Hello,
Seems like we've been searching forever and have not been able to find the original Public Domain version of the song "Trouble(s) Of The World (Soon I Will Be Done[with])" - it's the old Negro spiritual, but NOT the one by the similar name found in Slave Songs Of The United States - rather it's the one commonly arranged from by not a few gospel singers, most notably Mahalia Jackson; PLEASE HELP US!!! (lol) Thank You."
-snip-
Here's information about the above mentioned "old Negro Spiritual":
from http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/community/text3/religionslavesongs.pdf
"African American Songs documented in Florida and North Carolina, ca. 1865
Allan, Ware, and Garrison, eds., Slave Songs of the United States, 1867

Dese all my fader’s children,
Dese all my fader’s children,
Dese all my fader’s children,
Outshine de sun.

My fader’s done wid de trouble
o’ de world,wid de trouble o’ de world
Outshine de sun."
-snip-
Here's additional information about "Dese All My Fader's Children" (with the same lyrics) from Google books "Negro Slave Songs In The United States" by Miles Mark Fisher, originally published in 1953.
"Peculiar non-Christian Negro burial rites employed a trouble spiritual even in the early days of freedom. Possibly, in African custom, the members of the family of the deceased person would sing as they marched around the corpse in the order of age and relationship. The custom obtained in North Carolina, South Carolina, and elsewhere would be that the youngest child would then be passed over and under the coffin. Two strong men would afterwards run to the grave with the remains. The song that was sung was ..."
-snip-
The same lyrics to "Dese All My Fader's Children" as given above completes this excerpt.

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2. Subject: ADD: SOON A WILL BE DONE
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Sep 01 - 03:10 AM
..."The "song" may be in the public domain, but the arrangement of it-- that lets us see and hear it in our time-- is almost surely not. That is because anyone putting it in a book today either copyrights their arrangement of it or copyrights the book itself. (An exception is the CyberHymnal-- they make arrangements of their own in MIDI and do not copyright them. This song ain't in there though!

Determining if the origin of a particular version is authentically reproduced from slavery times (to establish age) is another problem. First, the variants in accepted usage at the time were numerous. Second, the ability of nearly-always-white collectors to capture the dialect was limited. Third, collectors' willingness to perpetuate the dialect they heard was slight in some cases, and got more slight as time passed and variants were handed down orally or in print. Fourth, when these were created (which would have started the public-domain-clock running), the singers made up verses on the spot more often than not, so no version is really "the" original, except the one the person sang when s/he was the first person to think of these words and this tune (whatever tune we are talking about).

The tunes also varied.

[...]

SOON A WILL BE DONE
Traditional Negro Spiritual

Soon-a will be done with the trouble of this world,
Soon-a will be done with the trouble of this world,
Soon-a will be done with the trouble of this world,
Going to live with God.

Come my brother and go with me
Come my brother and go with me
Come my brother and go with me
Let King Jesus make you free.

When I get to heav'n I will sing and tell
When I get to heav'n I will sing and tell
When I get to heav'n I will sing and tell
How I did shun both death and hell.

SOURCE: American Negro Songs, 230 Folk Songs and Spirituals, Religious and Secular. John W. Work, Dover Publications, Mineola, NY 1998. Orig. pub. Crown Publishers, NY, 1940. ISBN 0-486-40271-1."

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3. Subject: ADD: Soon-A Will Be Done / Soon I Will Be Done
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Sep 01 - 03:22 AM

[...]

"SOON A WILL BE DONE (second version)

CHORUS
Soon-a will be done with the troubles of the world,
Troubles of the world,
Troubles of the world,
Soon-a will be done with the troubles of the world,
Going home to live with God

1. No more weeping and a-wailing,
No more weeping and a-wailing,
No more weeping and a-wailing,
I'm going to live with God

2. I want t' meet my mother...(3 times)
I'm going to live with God

3. I want t' meet my Jesus...(3 times)
I'm going to live with God.

Source: John W. Work, "American Negro Folk Songs," 1940
There is an almost identical version called "Soon I Will Be Done" in "The Folk Songs of North America" (Alan Lomax, 1960)

Flash!
The UTK Song Index says "Soon-a will Be Done" is in a work called Folk Songs of the American Negro, published in 1907 by Frederick J. Work, with introduction by John W. Work, Jr."

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4. Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: TROUBLE OF THE WORLD
From: masato sakurai
Date: 28 Sep 01 - 05:06 AM

"This spiritual seem to have been recorded much later than the slavery days. According to the Cleveland Public Library's Index to Negro Spirituals [of thirty popular collections published up to 1937] (1991), the only book containing "Soon I will be done" is R.N. Dett, Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro, As Sung at Hampton Institute (1927, p. 234). This is a revised and enlarged edition as a separate book of the appendix to M.F. Armstrong, et al.'s Hampton and Its Students (1874). I have the reprint of the 1920 "new edition," where this song is not contained. The Index doesn't mention other title variants, so very likely no other versions are recorded in those "thirty collections." There is, however, an earlier version (in Jack Snyder, American Negro Spirituals, 1926) in Erskine Peters, Lyrics of the Afro-American Spiritual (Garland, 1993). I don't have Work's Folk Songs of the American Negro. Horace Clarence Boyer, in his notes to the Mahalia Jackson CD (Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns, Columbia/Legacy C2K 47083), says "TROUBLED OF THE WORLD: The popularity of this well-known spiritual was, due to, until 1959, to the concert choral arrangement by William Levi Dawson." Dawson's (b. 1899) arrangement was probably in 1930s, that is later than Dett. It is possible that this song had other titles or "floating verses" common to other spirituals."

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5. Subject: ADD: Soon-A-Will be Done
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Oct 01 - 02:35 AM

"Well, Alex, I found a copy of the 1915 book, Folk Song of the American Negro, at the library. This was written by John Wesley Work, 1871-1925. It's almost the same as what's in Work Jr.'s 1940 book, but with no musical notation.
-Joe Offer (e-mail sent)-

SOON-A-WILL BE DONE WITH THE TROUBLES OF THE WORLD

CHORUS
Soon-a-will be done-a-with the troubles of the world,
Troubles of the world,
Troubles of the world,
Soon-a-will be done-a-with the troubles of the world,
Going home to live with God

1. These are my Father's children,
These are my Father's children,
These are my Father's children,
All in-a-one band.

CHORUS

2. No more weeping and a-wailing,
No more weeping and a-wailing,
No more weeping and a-wailing,
All in-a-one band.

CHORUS
-snip-
[This book was] "written by" means it was "edited by" John Wesley Work, b. 1871-d. 1925 (also known as John Wesley Work, Jr. and John Wesley Work II). Read information about John Wesley Work II and John Wesley Work III in the Addendum to this post.)

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6. Subject: Lyr Add: THESE ARE MY FATHER'S CHILDREN
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 06:21 PM

"From The Story of the Jubilee Singers by J. B. T. Marsh (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1881), page 168:

THESE ARE MY FATHER'S CHILDREN

CHORUS: These are my Father's children,
These are my Father's children,
These are my Father's children,
All in one band.

1. And I soon shall be done with the troubles of the world,
Troubles of the world, troubles of the world,
And I soon shall be done with the troubles of the world.
Going home to live with God.

2. My brother's done with the troubles of the world, &c.

3. My sister's done with the troubles of the world, &c."

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ADDENDUM: INFORMATION ABOUT JOHN WESLEY WORK II & JOHN WESLEY WORK III
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Work_Jr.
"John Wesley Work Jr. (August 6, 1871 – September 7, 1925) was the first African-American collector of folk songs and spirituals, and also a choral director, educationalist and songwriter. He is now sometimes known as John Wesley Work II, to distinguish him from his son, John Wesley Work III.

Early life
Work was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of Samuella and John Wesley Work,[1] who was director of a church choir, some of whose members were also in the original Fisk Jubilee Singers.[2] John Wesley Work Jr. attended Fisk University, where he organised singing groups and studied Latin and history, graduating in 1895. He also studied at Harvard University.

Career
Work then taught in Tullahoma, Tennessee and worked in the library at Fisk University, before taking an appointment as a Latin and history instructor at Fisk in 1904.[2][1]

With his wife and his brother, Frederick Jerome Work, Work began collecting slave songs and spirituals, publishing them as New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (1901) and New Jubilee Songs and Folk Songs of the American Negro (1907). The latter book included the first publication of "Go Tell It on the Mountain", which he may have had a hand in composing.[2][1] His other songs included "Song of the Warrior", "If Only You Were Here", "Negro Lullaby", and "Negro Love Song". He also established the music publishing company, Work Brothers and Hart.[1]

As the director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, he was responsible for taking them on tour each year. However, because of negative feelings toward black folk music at Fisk, he was forced to resign his post there in 1923. He then served as president of Roger Williams University in Nashville, until his death in 1925."...

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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Work_III
"John Wesley Work III (July 15, 1901 – May 17, 1967) was a composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African-American folklore and music.

Biography
He was born on July 15, 1901, in Tullahoma, Tennessee, to a family of professional musicians. His grandfather, John Wesley Work, was a church choir director in Nashville, where he wrote and arranged music for his choirs. Some of his choristers were members of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers. His father, John Wesley Work, Jr., was a singer, folksong collector and professor of music, Latin, and history at Fisk, and his mother, Agnes Haynes Work, was a singer who helped train the Fisk group. His uncle, Frederick Jerome Work, also collected and arranged folksongs, and his brother, Julian, became a professional musician and composer.

Work began his musical training at the Fisk University Laboratory School, moving on to the Fisk High School and then the university, where he received a B.A. degree in 1923. After graduation, he attended the Institute of Musical Art in New York City (now the Juilliard School of Music), where he studied with Gardner Lamson. He returned to Fisk and began teaching in 1927, spending summers in New York studying with Howard Talley and Samuel Gardner. In 1930 he received an M.A. degree from Columbia University with his thesis American Negro Songs and Spirituals. He was awarded two Julius Rosenwald Foundation Fellowships for the years 1931 to 1933 and, using these to take two years leave from Fisk, he obtained a B.Mus. degree from Yale University in 1933.

Work spent the remainder of his career at Fisk, until his retirement in 1966. He served in a variety of positions, notably as a teacher, chairman of the Fisk University Department of Music, and director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers from 1947 until 1956. He published articles in professional journals and dictionaries over a span of more than thirty years. His best known articles were "Plantation Meistersingers" in The Musical Quarterly (Jan. 1940), and "Changing Patterns in Negro Folksongs" in the Journal of American Folklore (Oct. 1940)."...

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This concludes Part I of this two part pancocojams series on "Soon I Will Be Done".

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