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Before This Time Another Year/Oh Lord How Long?/ Please Don't Drive Your Children Away
Traditional Old-Time Gospel;
ARTIST: From John and Alan Lomax in their 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs.
YOUTUBE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_1qv8_m_hM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaJrXjofZmg
CATEGORY: Traditional and Public Domain Gospel;
DATE: 1800s; Collected and published in 1922 by Perkins in Journal of American folklore, Volume 35, Page 224 "In Some Lonesome Graveyard"
RECORDING INFO: Before This Time Another Year/Oh Lord How Long?
Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers/Friends of Old Time Music: The Folk Arrival (1961-1965) "Before This Time Another Year"
Chosen Gospel Singers, "Before This Time Another Year" (Specialty 848, n.d.)
Cleveland Simmons and Mr. Taylor, "I May Be Gone" (AAFS 422 A2, 1935; on LomaxCD1822-2)
Odette & Ethel, "Befo' This Time Another Year" (Columbia 14169-D, 1926)
Sister L. Brown & congregation "Before This Time, Another Year" (on MuSouth09)
Stella/CD: Different Skies "Before This Time"
Washington, Flood Ernestine; "Please Don't Drive Your Children Away"
Work, John W. / American Negro Songs and Spirituals, Dover, Bk (1998/1940), p127; Before This Time Another Year
GALILEE SINGERS: Before This Time Another Year
E.J. Brumfield and Chosen Gospel Singers "Before This Time Another Year"
OTHER NAMES: "I May Be Gone" "Oh Lord How Long?"
"Please Don't Drive Your Children Away (Flood Ernestine Washington)"
SOURCES: Howard Odum and appears in his 1925 book, "The Negro and his Songs."
Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands - Page 220 Lydia Parrish, Art Rosenbaum, Olin Downes - Music - 1992 - 256 pages
NOTES: "Before This Time Another Year" under the title "Oh Lawd How Long" was collected by John and Alan Lomax and appears in their 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs. The song is an African-American spiritual and a different hymn with similar lyrics found in the 1890s in old hymn books (Randolph).
Perhaps the earliest African-American spiritual version is a fragment that was collected and published in 1922 by Perkins in Journal of American folklore, Volume 35, Page 224:
In Some Lonesome Graveyard- Perkins 1922
This time next year,
I may be in some lonesome graveyard,
Oh Lord! How long?
The spiritual under the title "Oh Lord How Long?" is in the repertoire of Louise Miller Cohen [see version 3], a native of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. She has been able to experience the Gullah Culture first hand. Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers recorded a version that ca nbe heard on Friends of Old Time Music: The Folk Arrival (1961-1965) under the title, "Before This Time Another Year." Aversion appears in the book, Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands By Lydia Parrish, Art Rosenbaum, Olin Downes.
According to Randolph, the song is a spiritual and also a different hymn found in the white churches in the 1890s: http://books.google.com/books?id=g3JtLNe3nroC&pg=PA51&dq=%22Oh+Lord,+How+Long!%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html&cd=2
Oh Lord How Long?- Randolph 1928
A'n this time another year
I may be dead and gone,
Down in some lonesome graveyard,
Oh Lord, how long?
Another version similar to the old hymn Randolph collected was recalled in a forum on-line:
Before this time another year
I may be dead and gone,
my body wrapped up in the clay
my soul gone home to God.
I'll like to know before I go
What will become of me.
In the 1940s and 1950s Flood Ernestine Washington and other black gospel groups recorded a version of the song under the title, "Please Don't Drive Your Children Away."
Here's a quote found in the Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture, Volume 6 - Page 29 Atlanta University, 1945:
But they sang with restraint, too: "Please don't drive yo' children away":
Before dis time another year,
Before dis time another year I might be dead;
PLEASE DON"T DRIVE YOUR CHILDREN AWAY- Middle Georgia Quartet from Sterling A. Brown's "A Negro looks at the South" By Sterling Allen Brown, John Edgar Tidwell, Mark A. Sanders. (1942 Summer Festival at Fort Valley)
Before dis time another year,
Before dis time another year,
I might be dead, I'll let you know.
Before I go...
Sometimes my heart go leakin',
And tears come streamin' down.
I'm bowing on my knees
Before dis time another year,
I might be dead,
Please don't drive yo' children away
Teh song is in Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands - Page 220 Lydia Parrish, Art Rosenbaum, Olin Downes - Music - 1992 - 256 pages:
Befo' this time another year
I may be gone
In some lonesome graveyard
O Lord how long!
Other lines include, "Mind my sister how you walk on the cross" [See Version 4].
It been heard it many ways, sometimes as a verse as in the next two examples:
It's another days journey and I'm glad about
(back ground repeat..I'm glad about it)
I'm glad about it...I'm glad about it.
It's another days journey and i'm glad about it.
You know that I'm so glad to be here.
Verse I: Before this time another yea, I may be dead and gone
before I go I'll let you know before I go what will become of me.
"There's A Leak In This Old Building" Performed by- LaShun Pace (exceprt)
Chorus: This old building keeps on leaning and my soul
Choir: Has got to move
My soul
Choir: Has got to move
My soul
Choir: Has got to move
This old building keeps on leaning and my soul
Choir: Has got to move
Move to another building
Choir: A building not made by man's hand
Verse: Before this time, another year, I may be dead and gone.
But before I go, I want to let you know, I'll be moving to my brand new home.
BALLAD INDEX Oh, Lord, How Long
DESCRIPTION: "Before this time another year, I may be (dead and) gone, Down in some lonesome graveyard, Oh Lord, how long!" "Just as the tree falls, just so it lies; Just as the sinner lives, just so he dies." "My mother broke the ice and gone...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (recording, Odette & Ethel)
KEYWORDS: religious death family nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 615, "Oh Lord, How Long!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 586-587, "Oh, Lawd, How Long?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Chase, p. 169, "Oh Lord, How Long?" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R615 (Full)
Roud #7546
RECORDINGS:
Sister L. Brown & congregation "Before This Time, Another Year" (on MuSouth09)
The Chosen Gospel Singers, "Before This Time Another Year" (Specialty 848, n.d.)
Cleveland Simmons and Mr. Taylor, "I May Be Gone" (AAFS 422 A2, 1935; on LomaxCD1822-2)
Odette & Ethel, "Befo' This Time Another Year" (Columbia 14169-D, 1926)
Notes: This is really a chorus with extra lyrics. Bessie Jones sang a version with irregular lines (interspersed with the phrase "how long"?), which broke into the chorus at random intervals. The Lomax text proceeds in double lines, but of different lengths. Some of the versions are regular. But the song is recognized by the chorus "Before this time another year, I may be gone...." - RBW
OH, LAWD, HOW LONG?- John and Alan Lomax 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs.
Before this time next year I might be gone,
And in some lonesome Graveyard Oh, Lord, how long?
Jes' so de tree fall, jes' so it lie,
Jes' so de sinner live, jes' so he die.
My mother's broke the ice an' gone—oh, Lawd, how long?
An' soon she'll sing dat heavenly song—oh, Lord, how long?
OH LORD HOW LONG? Louise Miller Cohen
Louise Miller Cohen is a native of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina . She has been able to experience the Gullah Culture firsthand.
L. Cohen: <Speaking to an audience> Now there are many songs to-to-to preserve;
many songs that we don’t hear anymore. Um, and of course when-when I was coming
along, they used to sing it, there was no music. All they had was they hand and they feet,
you know because at one time they took their drums away from them. <Adopts a thick
Gullah accent> White massah no good why he take dem chilren drum way from um.
‘Cause tell me said if they tellin’ me wan’ get one message from-from-from here in
Columbia and wan’ get that message to Hilton Head all dem chilren have to do been get on that drum but it take dem chilren one hour and them chilren on Hilton Head woulda know bout that thing what happened to ya here in Columbia. <Audience laughs>
3. “Oh Lord, How Long” (01:44)
L. Cohen: <Speaking> Ok, I’m gonna do, just a little bit of “Oh Lord, How Long” ‘cause I-just this one is too precious to um, not to do this because I think at this time they might have been gettin’ weary um, with um, the cruelty um, and cruel treatment they was under and I think they was just askin’ the Lord, “Oh Lord, How Long?” Because it seemed like they had waited on Him and the Lord wasn’t movin’ I guess fast enough. So um, just a little bit of-
L. Cohen: <Singing>
Before this time another year,
I may be gone. <Begins to clap a rhythm>
In some lonesome graveyard,
Oh Lord, how long?
Why don’t you go down Gabriel?
How long?
Blow that trumpet.
How long?
Why don’t you blow [????]?
How long?
Before this time another year,
I may be gone.
In some lonesome graveyard,
Oh Lord, how long?
Oh Lord, how long?
Why don’t you go down Gabriel?
How long?
Won’t you take the trumpet?
How long?
Why don’t you blow on [????]?
How long?
Before this time another year,
I may be gone.
In some lonesome graveyard,
Oh Lord, how long?
Oh Lord, how long?
Say, go down Gabriel.
How long?
Won’t you take your trumpet?
How long?
Why don’t you blow on [????]?
How long?
Before this time another year,
I might be gone.
In some lonesome graveyard,
<Getting gradually softer>
Oh Lord, how long?
Oh Lord, how long?
Oh Lord, how long?
Oh Lord, how long?
Oh Lord, how long?
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