|
You Got A Right/Run Mary Run/Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life
Traditional Old-Time Spiritual;
ARTIST: Senior Lights from Johns Island, South Carolina (Bernice Johnson Reagon)/ People of St. John Island (Carawan)/Ashley Bryant
Sheet Music: http://books.google.com/books?id=cP-vouiZ0JsC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=right+to+the+tree+of+life+negro&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html
Sheet music Carawan: http://books.google.com/books?id=_JB9WDAfK_wC&pg=PA170&lpg=PP1&dq=right+to+the+tree+of+life+Carawan&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html
CATEGORY: Traditional Bluegrass Gospel;
DATE: 1900s; First Recorded
RECORDING INFO: Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life
Winds of the People, Sing Out, Sof (1982), p 32
Blood, Peter; and Annie Patterson (eds.) / Rise Up Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1992/1989), p 58
Bryant, Ashley "I'm Going To Sing-Black American Spirituals Volume II." {New York, Atheneum, 1982; p. 47
Carawan, Guy and Candie. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Folk Era FE 1419, CD (1994), trk# 2.02 [1985]
Carawan, Guy. Tree of Life, Flying Fish FF 525, LP (1990), trk# A.04
Carawan, Guy. Sing Out Reprints, Sing Out, Sof (1959), 10, p62
Carawan, Guy. Cooney, Michael (ed.) / How Can We Keep From Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1974), p40
Moving Star Hall Congregation. Carawan, Guy & Candie (eds.) / Ain't You Got A Right to the Tree of Life, Univ. of Georgia, Sof (1989/1966), p170
Famous Gospel Four. Progressive "I've Got a Right to the Tree of Life" c.1950
OTHER NAMES: "You Got The Right" "I've Got a Right to the Tree of Life" "Tree of Life"
SOURCES: Folk Index;
NOTES: "The Tree of Life" is an important image found in early African-American spirituals noteable one of the oldest "Roll Jordan Roll." Here an excerpt from Charlotte Forten, "Life on the Sea Islands" The Atlantic Monthly, May and June, 1864:
The people sang, “Roll, Jordan, roll,” the grandest of all their hymns. There is a great, rolling wave of sound through it all.
“Mr. Fuller settin’ on de Tree ob Life,
Fur to hear de yen Jordan roll.
Oh, roll, Jordan! roll, Jordan! roll, Jordan Roll!
CHORUS: “Oh, roll, Jordan, roll! oh, roll, Jordan, roll!
My soul arise in heab’n, Lord,
Fur to hear de yen Jordan roll!
The “Mr. Fuller” referred to was their former minister, to whom they seem to have been much attached.
In the King James Version of the Bible, book of Revelations, chapter 22, there is a passage that describes a river of vital water, on either side of which stood “the tree of life” that bore “twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Further into the chapter, in verse 14, there is also this: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
Guy Carawan, wrote the book, Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island from his stay on St. John's Island in the late 1950s and ealry 1960s. It was reissued in 1989. Sheet music Carawan: http://books.google.com/books?id=_JB9WDAfK_wC&pg=PA170&lpg=PP1&dq=right+to+the+tree+of+life+Carawan&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html
Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life? The People of Johns Island
Leader: Hey Lord
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
Leader: Hey Lord
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
Leader: Hey Lord
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
All: Ain't you got a right to the Tree of Life?
Leader: Tell my Mother
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
Leader: Tell my Mother
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
Leader: Tell my Mother
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
All: Ain't you got a right to the Tree of Life?
Leader: Tell my father
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
Leader: Tell my father
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
Leader: Tell my father
Chorus: Ain't You Got a Right
All: Ain't you got a right to the Tree of Life?
[Repeat first stanza]
Senior Lights from John's Island do a version [see below] of the song titled, Run Mary Run. The song in different form is found in Scarborough 1925 (as a chorus) and Johnson 1926 as a song with a different tag: "I know de oder worl' 'm not like dis" instead of "You got a right to the tree of life."
"RUN, MARY, RUN" from “The Book of American Negro Spirituals”by J. W. Johnson, J. R. Johnson, 1926 (excerpt)
Run, Mary, run
Run, Mary, run
Oh, run, Mary, run
I know de udder world is not like dis
Fire in de Eas’ an’ fire in de Wes’
I know de udder world is not like dis
Boun’ to burn de wilderness
I know de udder world is not like dis
When "Run Mary Run" became part of the "Ain't You Got a Right" songs is unclear but the new form of Run Mary Run seems to have come from the Georgia Sea Islands.
Rachel Elizabeth Harding: The song that serves as our epigraph, “Run, Mary, Run” reminds us of the genius and poetry with which the spirituals entered the stories and metaphors of the Bible and opened them to a powerful new set of meanings based in the African American struggle for freedom. Mary is Jesus’ mother, yes, a member of the oppressed Hebrew nation; but, in this song, she is also the enslaved Black woman whose burdens are heavy and whose children have been stolen from her. Run, Mary, Run the spiritual urges, don’t let the sorrows of your present circumstance overtake you. Run meaning, “keep going.” Run meaning, “don’t be afraid to leave, don’t be afraid to go north.” Run meaning “get away, physically and otherwise from anything that denies your humanity.” Run meaning, “run to God.” Run, Mary, Run, because you got a right to the tree of life. The wounded mothers of Brazil and the weeping Marys of North America shared an imperative for connection to a source that would comfort them, affirm them and urge them forward on their journeys. Spirituals, like rooms consecrated to the African divinities, are vessels of the sacred – imbued with a dynamic, holy lifeforce that strengthens, blesses and animates being.
You Got A Right to the Tree of Life: African American Spirituals and Religions of the Diaspora by Rachel Elizabeth Harding. Run Mary Run, traditional spiritual sung by The Senior Lights from Johns Island, South Carolina and transcribed in Bernice Johnson Reagon, If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001; 62-63.
Run, Mary, run
Run, Mary, run I say
Run, Mary, run
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Little Mary you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Hebrew children got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Weeping Mary, you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Cross is heavy, but you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Come to tell you, you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Children gone, but you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
Oh weeping Mary…
http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/Religion/
The following version is posted by Azizi on the Mudcat Forum:
RUN MARY RUN
http://ctl.du.edu/spirituals/Freedom/values.cfm
Run, Mary, Run
Run, Mary, run,
Run, Martha, run,
Tell, Mary, run, I say,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Run, Mary, run,
Run, Martha, run,
Tell, Mary, run, I say,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Little Mary you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
The Hebrew Children got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Paul and Silas you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
I come to tell you, you got a right
You got a right to the tree of life.
I come to tell you, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
The voice is heavy but you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Ups and down but you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
True hard born, but you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Oh Weepin' Mary,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Oh Weepin' Mary,
You got a right to the tree of life.
I come to tell you, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
I come to tell you, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Ups and down, but you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Ups and down, but you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Run, Mary, run,
Run, Martha, run,
Tell, Mary, run, I say,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Run, Mary, run, I say,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Run, Mary, run, I say,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
You got a right, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Mary and Martha got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
Mary and Martha, you got a right,
You got a right to the tree of life.
YOU GOT A RIGHT- Ashley Bryant "I'm Going To Sing-Black American Spirituals Volume II." {New York, Atheneum, 1982; p. 47
You got a right
I got a right
We all got a right to the tree of life
Yes, tree of life.
The very time I thought I was lost
The dungeon shook
and the chain fell off.
You may hinder me here
But you can not there
'Cause God in heaven
going to answer prayer, O bretheren
YOU GOT A RIGHT- Johnson
You got a right
I got a right
We all got a right
To de tree of life, yes [repeat]
De very time I thought I was los'
De dungeon shuck an' de chain fell off.
You may hinder me here,
But you can not dere.
'Cause God in heaven
Gwine to answer prayer (O bretheren) (2nd time: O sisteren)
You got a right
I got a right
We all got a right
To de tree of life, yes [repeat]
I've Got a Right to the Tree of Life- Famous Gospel Four Progressive c.1950
Oh you know I've got a right (right to the tree of life)
Lord to the tree of life (right to the tree of life)
Well you know I've got a right (right to the tree of life)
Lord to the tree of life (right to the tree of life)
God's gonna make a statement
You must be born again
You've got a right (right to the tree of life)
Lord to the tree of life (right to the tree of life)
Prophet Powers and the Holy Mount Singers Tree of Life Manor 1948
(resembles "When the Saints"
CHORUS: There's a tree of life saved for me
There's a tree of life saved for me
Every minute every hour
I can feel it's precious power
There's a tree of life saved for me
|