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Dark Was the Night/Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
Public Domain and Traditional Old-Time, Gospel and Instrumental (Blind Willie Johnson) by Thomas Haweis (1734-1820); Melody: Richmond
ARTIST: 1) From the singing of John and Lovie Griffins; Near Cahaba River, Perry County, Alabama; April 10, 1954.
2) From the singing of Mary Price. Near Angola, Louisiana, June 22, 1954. Recorded by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. [Folkways 2656 Music from the South, Vol. 7: Elder Songsters, 2]
Melody: Richmond http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/mid/richmonh.mid
YOUTUBE: Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night (Instrumental)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNj2BXW852g&feature=related
SHEET MUSIC: http://books.google.com/books?id=Mx5O73a7aIkC&pg=PA84&dq=%22Dark+was+the+night%22+cold&cd=10#v=onepage&q=%22Dark%20was%20the%20night%22%20cold&f=false
CATEGORY: Traditional and Public Domain Gospel;
DATE: circa 1792
RECORDING INFO: Dark Was the Night- Thomas Haweis
Bibb, Leon. Tol' My Captain. Chain Gang and Work Songs, Vanguard VRS 9058, LP (1960), trk# A.05
Johnson, Blind Willie. Folk Box, Elektra EKL 9001, LP (1964), trk# 34
Johnson, Blind Willie. Folk Music USA. Vol. 1, Folkways FE 4530, LP (1959), trk# A.05 [1928ca]
Johnson, Blind Willie. Courlander, Harold (ed.) / Negro Folk Music U.S.A., Columbia Univ. Press, Bk (1963), p251 [1928ca]
Johnson, Blind Willie. Complete Blind Willie Johnson, Columbia Legacy C2K 52835, CD (1993), trk# 1.05 [1927/12/03]
Mitchell, Sam. Mitchell, Sam, Kicking Mule, Fol (1976), p11
OTHER NAMES: "I Don't Want To Stay Here No Longer"
RELATED TO:
SOURCES: Mudcat;
NOTES: The public domain hymn "Gethsemane" or "Dark Was the Night" by English physician and clergyman Thomas Haweis was printed in Carmina Christo, first edition in 1792. It's a long and winding road from the Carmina Christo to slide guitar and moaning of Blind Willie Johnson whose version "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was included on the Voyager Golden Record, sent into space with the Voyager spacecraft in 1977 - Johnson’s music left the solar system on December 16, 2004.
Ry Cooder once said Johnson's "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" was the most soulful, transcendental piece of American music recorded in the 20th Century.
The song is also used in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew; Walk the Line, a biopic of country singer Johnny Cash; The Devil’s Rejects, a serial killer film by rocker Rob Zombie; and Public Enemies, a Michael Mann’s movie about John Dillinger, a famous criminal from ’30s.
The first three stanzas appear in A Collection of Hymns for Public, Social,
Olid Domestic Worship (Nashville, Tenn., 1859), P- 88; the whole, in Basil Manly and B. Manly's The Baptist Psalmody (Charleston, S. C, 1850 J, p. 124. White ANFS 105-6 prints songs containing the first stanza, with other references. Cf. Jackson WNS 199 (No. Ixxiv). An African-American version of this song, from Alabama, appears in Emily Hallowell, Calhoun Plantation Songs (Boston, 1901), p. 31.
Biography- Haweis, Thomas, LL.B., M.D., born at Truro, Cornwall, 1732. After practising for a time as a Physician, he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated. Taking Holy Orders, he became Assistant Preacher to M. Madan at the Lock Hospital, London, and subsequently Rector of All Saints, Aldwincle, Northamptonshire. He was also Chaplain to Lady Huntingdon, and for several years officiated at her Chapel in Bath. He died at Bath, Feb. 11, 1820. He published several prose works, including A History of the Church, A Translation of the New Testament, and A Commentary on the Holy Bible. His hymns, a few of which are of more than ordinary merit, were published in his
Carmina Christo; or, Hymns to the Saviour. Designed for the Use and Comfort of Those who worship the Lamb that was slain. Bath, S. Hayward, 1792 (139 hymns), enlarged. London, 1808 (256 hymns). In 1194, or sometime after, but before the enlarged edition was published, two hymns "For the Fast-day, Feb. 28, 1794," were added to the first edition. These were, "Big with events, another year," and "Still o'er the deep the cannon's roar."
The most popular and widely used of his hymns are, "Behold the Lamb of God, Who bore," "Enthroned on high, Almighty Lord"; and “O Thou from Whom all goodness flows." "Gethsemane" or "Dark was the night and cold the ground" appears in the Carmina Christo, first edition 1792.
The original hymn entered tradition and three traditional versions appear in the Brown collection. Besides the African-American version in Calhoun Plantation Songs "Dark Was The Night" was used as the first two verses of Blind Joe Taggart's version of Been Listening":
Been Listening All The Day- Joe Taggart
[fiddle]
Dark was the night and cold the ground
On which my Lord was laid
His sweat like drops of blood ran down
In agony he prayed
CHORUS 2X: I've been listening all the night long,
I've been listening all the day
I've been listening all the night long,
To hear some sinner pray.
Father, remove this bitter cup,
If such Thy sacred will;
If not, content to drink it up
Pleasures I fulfill
Two versions appear in the early 1950s Folkway's Music from the South, Vol. 7: Elder Songsters. One version is sung by John and Lovie Griffins, the melody of which sounds similar to what Johnson's moan: the song is a slow drawn out dirge sung in an intertwining call and response is between Griffins and his wife--not unlike how Johnson sang with Willie B. Harris and Angeline Johnson, respectively, at his two sessions for Columbia Records. The other short version by Mary Price was recorded near Angola, Louisiana. It's also slow and embellished, similar to African-American versions of "A Charge to Keep."
Dark Was the Night- Thomas Haweis 1792
1. Dark was the night, and cold the ground
On which the Lord was laid;
His sweat like drops of blood ran down;
In agony he prayed.
2. "Father, remove this bitter cup,
If such Thy sacred will;
If not, content to drink it up
Thy pleasure I fulfill."
3. Go to the garden, sinner, see
Those precious drops that flow;
The heavy load He bore for thee;
For thee he lies so low.
4. Then learn of Him the cross to bear;
Thy Father's will obey;
And when temptations press thee near,
Awake to watch and pray.
DARK WAS THE NIGHT, AND COLD THE GROUND- From the singing of John and Lovie Griffins; Near Cahaba River, Perry County, Alabama; April 10, 1954.
A slight variant is printed in Newman White's "American Negro Folk Songs" with the comment: "except for the grammar of line 3 (Sweat like blood run down in drops) it is identical with stanza 1 of Thomas Haweis' (1732-1820) hymn included in several hymn-books of the white churches from the early nineteenth century." A second variant, printed by White, has a fourth stanza from Dr. Watts' "Am I A Soldier of the Cross?" It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that the next song John and Lovie Griffins chose was this same Dr. Watts hymn. It should be oted that the Griffins' sang "Dark was the Night" from memory, and had it by heart; the other hymns were read from a book, and followed the more traditional method for singing "the old Dr. Watts" and other hymns. For a recording of "Dark was the Night" that brings us very close to the blues idiom, compare that of Blind Willie Johnson, The Folkways Jazz Series, Vol. 2, Side 1, Band 1.
Dark was the night and cold the ground
On which my Lord was laid
His sweat like drops of blood ran down
In agony he prayed
Father, remove this bitter cup.
If such thy secret will, ...
Griffins comments, "that's all I know by heart."
SELECTION 2: DARK WAS THE NIGHT From the singing of Mary Price. Near Angola, Louisiana, June 22, 1954. Recorded by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. [Folkways 2656 Music from the South, Vol. 7: Elder Songsters, 2]
For text and word source, see under Note for Side 1, Band 7, this volume (7).
Although its words are printed in the Baptist Standard Hymnal, "Dark Was the Night" is sung by many southern African-Americans without recourse to text. It is an outstanding example of a hymn that has been "pulled away" from its point of origin and shaped into a passionate personal expression of suffering and sorrow. Mary Price 's singing of the line, "on which the Lord was laid" brings the hearer close to the phrasing and melody of secular blues, and suggests that some of the traditional blues may, in turn, have "pulled away" from their religious environment.
Dark Was the Night, and Cold the Ground- Mary Price
Dark was de night and cold the ground
On which the Lord was laid.
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