Georgia young Black men singing a secularized version of "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" in 1929 (film clip, lyrics, & comments)

Mike *--_--*, Oct. 18, 2007

Times ain't like they used to be [videorecording] : early rural and popular American music, 1928-1935

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a 1929 film clip of African American farm hands singing a version of the Spiritual "Oh Mary Don't You Weep". This version includes a secularized verse.

My transcription of the lyrics to this song are included in this post along with comments from the discussion thread for this YouTube video.

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

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to the unknown composer of this Spiritual, thanks to the unknown singers in this film clip, and thanks to the person who filmed this clip. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of his video on YouTube.  

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INFORMATION ABOUT "OH MARY DON'T YOU WEEP"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Don%27t_You_Weep
" "Mary Don't You Weep" (alternately titled "O Mary Don't You Weep", "Oh Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn", or variations thereof) is a Spiritual that originates from before the American Civil War[1] – thus it is what scholars call a "slave song," "a label that describes their origins among the enslaved," and it contains "coded messages of hope and resistance."[2] It is one of the most important of Negro spirituals.[1] It is listed as number 11823 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

The song tells the Biblical story of Mary of Bethany and her distraught pleas to Jesus to raise her brother Lazarus from the dead.[1] Other narratives relate to The Exodus and the Passage of the Red Sea, with the chorus proclaiming Pharaoh's army got drown-ded!, and to God's rainbow covenant to Noah after the Great Flood.[1] With liberation thus one of its themes, the song again became popular during the Civil Rights Movement.[1] Additionally, a song that explicitly chronicles the victories of the Civil Rights Movement, "If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus", written by Charles Neblett of The Freedom Singers, was sung to this tune and became one of the most well-known songs of that movement.[3]

In 2015 The Swan Silvertones's version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry for the song's "cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation’s audio legacy".[4]

Recordings

The first recording of the song was by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1915.[1][5] The folklorist Alan Lomax recorded several traditional variants of the song in the 1930s, 40s and 50s across the United States, from Mississippi[6] to Ohio[7] to Michigan,[8] including one version by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) of Louisiana in 1935.[9]

The best known recordings were made by the vocal gospel group The Caravans in 1958, with Inez Andrews as the lead singer, and The Swan Silvertones in 1959.[1][10] "Mary Don't You Weep" became The Swan Silvertones' greatest hit,[11] and lead singer Claude Jeter's interpolation "I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name" [12] served as Paul Simon's inspiration to write his 1970 song "Bridge over Troubled Water".[11][13] The spiritual's lyric God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water the fire next time inspired the title for The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin's 1963 account of race relations in America.[1]

Many other recordings have been made, by artists ranging from The Soul Stirrers to Burl Ives."...

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LYRICS FOR THIS VERSION OF "OH MARY DON'T YOU WEEP"

Chorus

Oh Mary don’t you weep don’t you moan
Oh Mary don’t you weep don’t you moan
Oh Mary don’t you weep don’t you moan
Pharoah’s army got drownded
Oh Mary don’t you weep

[repeat chorus]

Soloist #2 -I done told you once. I done told you twice
You can’t get to heaven with a sweetheart and a wife
All -Pharoah’s army got drownded
Oh Mary don’t you weep

Chorus [sung one time]

Soloist #1- God made man, and He made him out of clay
Put him on earth, but not to stay
All-Pharoah’s army got drownded
Oh Mary don’t you weep

Chorus [sung one time]

Soloist #2 -I done told you once. I done told you twice
You can’t get to heaven with a sweetheart and a wife
All- Pharoah’s army got drownded
Oh Mary don’t you weep

Chorus [sung one time]
-snip-
This rendition features two soloists-the man playing the banjo and the man seated in the front to the left of the banjo player . Each soloist sings his verse.

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COMMENTS FROM THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD
(This is all of the comments in that discussion thread as of January 9, 2022 10:20 AM EDT (including a reply that I just added to a comment that I wrote in 2011.) 

Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.

1. upst8, 2008
"Wow! What an incredible clip. Glad it is so well preserved.

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2. sirop1960, 2009
"Wow this is incredibly touching music.  Thank you for posting this, it's good to know this kind of performance existed."

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3. abcaines, 2009
"Absolutely beautiful harmonies."

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4. JSLLH, 2010
"so beautiful ! we are lucky that this music was filmed !"

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5. Joan Bullard, 2010
"this is a true blue real deal of a gemstone of rural gospel"

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6. VolvoWagon77, 2010
"What a magnifiicent  piece  of footage, especially love the "oops" moment at about 30 seconds. Although they are not my ancestors I would be proud if they were."

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7. chopsie01, 2010
"never heard most of these verses before, and the one at :48 i especially liked:

 "god made man, and he made him out of clay; put him on earth, but not to stay"

 ...too bad that little bit of lyric seems to have been lost"

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8. odeerg, 2015
"This is outtakes from footage shot for a Fox Movietone newsreel in 1929. I have also seen the rest of this footage with these same guys in a boat in a swamp singing Swanee river.

And to the person saying how it is fake and how it was too hard to record this and would take truckloads of equipment. It did take truckloads, there were Fox Movietone trucks that traveled around the country thankfully documenting stuff like this all throughout the 1920s and 1930s."

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9. Jauntle, 2011
"This is priceless!!!"  

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10. Azizi Powell, 2011
"As another commenter wrote this is priceless-both the film clip and the rendition itself.

I've never read or heard this version of Oh Mary Don't You Weep. For instance this verse is repeated  two times in the song (not consecutively) I done told you once/ I done told you twice/you can't get to heaven/with a sweetheart & a wife".

I transcribed the words to this version and posted them on my website. Google Cocojams American Banjo & Fiddle Songs."

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Reply
11. Azizi Powell, 2022
"This is a secularized version of the African American Spiritual "Oh Mary Don't You Weep". The two verses that are sung are "I done told you once / I done told you twice/you can't get to heaven/with a sweetheart & a wife".  And "God made man, and He made him out of clay/Put him on earth, but not to stay."

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/01/georgia-young-black-men-singing.html for a post about this film clip on my pancocojams cultural blog. Thanks to the memories of the unknown composer/s of "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" and thanks to the memories of these unknown singers of this version of that song.

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12. Paul TheSkeptic, 2014
"Great footage. I wish someone would have filmed more of the music from the south from this period."

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13. Coral Springs Software, 2012
"This is historic. This is so important to remember. This was life in America. If we only had a full length reality show of these guys. What a life they lived. This is REAL America. We're missing so much of history, it's a shame."

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14. SM NONA, 2012
"THESE young men could not have imagined that- more than a lifetime-later- we would be summoning them out of a quantum reality to re-live their folkloric experience. It was a Sunday afternoon, and a single banjo centered them, after a simple meal, in a ballad that would travel forward into time. Their dry bones are singing now, in an emotional encounter with a present sense which paints a common soul with the living. Their voices speak out of a tradition of slavery, which we can hardly imagine. " 

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15. Debra Sparks, 2016
"We sang this in school, years and years ago... I am 60 now, and I haven't heard this song for at least 50 years !!!"

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16. Seymour Sunshine, 2019
"Like so many others, I love this. I'd love to play this as authentically as possible. Can anyone work out the chords?

I think the banjo is in Chicago tuning (same as the top 4 strings as a guitar) which I can't "read" from his fingers. I've got most of the chords by ear, but I've got just two chords missing. Can anyone supply them? This is what I've got:

[C]Oh, Mary don't you [G7]weep, don't you mourn.

Oh, Mary don't you [C]weep, don't you mourn.

[F]Pharo's army got [C]drown-[A7]ded,

[?]Oh, [?]Mary, don't [C]weep.

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17. Sarah, 2020
"Thanks for posting this! What a treasure! My grandmother used to rock me and sing the gospel "Mary don't you weep" song to me as a young child. Lately I've come across some real Bluesy versions. I'd never heard one with the "If I tell you once, I'll tell you twice..." refrains. 🤣🤣🤣 I guess they had to make it their own."

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18. Kenny guitar Allen, 2020
"just brilliant,loved it"

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19. sheep's wool, 2021
"This is a wonderful piece of history. Thank you for posting this!"

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