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Death Is Awful
Traditional spiritual;
ARTIST: Vera Hall; May 1939 Lomax Southern Recording Trip Livingston, Alabama
Listen: http://memory.loc.gov/afc/afcss39/268/2682a2.mp3
SHEET MUSIC:
YOUTUBE:
CATEGORY: Traditional and Shape-Note Gospel;
DATE: 1800s;
RECORDING INFO: Death Is Awful
Vera Ward Hall, May 1939 Lomax Southern Recording Trip Livingston, Alabama
OTHER NAMES:
RELATED TO: "Oh Death"
SOURCES: Lomax Southern Recording Trip; Mudcat Discussion Forum
NOTES: "Death Is Awful" is an African-American spiritual recorded by Vera Hall in May 1939 on Lomax Southern Recording Trip (Livingston, Alabama). Notes organized by Susan Hinton; Mudcat Discussion Forum.
Listen: http://memory.loc.gov/afc/afcss39/268/2682a2.mp3
#2682 DEATH IS AWFUL- Transcribed from version sung by Vera Hall. Just before she begins, you hear them say, "Start over again" in the background. So this must be at least Take Two.
Oh, death is awful,
Oh, death is awful,
Oh, death is awful
Spare me over another year.
If I was a flower in my bloom
Make death cut me down so soon
He'll stretch yo' eyes an' stretch yo' limbs,
This is the way death begins
Oh, death is awful,
Oh, death is awful,
Oh, death is awful
Spare me over another year.
He'll fix yo' feet so you can't walk
He'll lock yo' jaws so you can't talk,
He'll close yo' eyes so you can't see,
At this very hour you must go with me
O death, have mercy,
O death, have mercy,
O death,
Jes' spare me over another year.
O death, have mercy,
O death, have mercy,
O death,
Jes' spare me over another year.
There is a pause here and again you hear a prompt from the background. She conmtinues:
He'll fix yo' feet so you can't walk
He'll lock yo' jaws so you can't talk,
He'll close yo' eyes so you can't see,
At this very hour you must go with me
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The words given in the field notes show a different pattern and an additional verse:
2682 A 2 Death is awful- sung by Vera Hall
Death is awful, death is awful, death is awful
Spare me over another year.
If I was a flower in my bloom
Make death cut me down so soon
He'll stretch yo' eyes an' stretch yo' limbs,
This is the way death begins
He'll fix yo' feet so you can't talk
He'll lock yo' jaws so you can't talk,
He'll close yo' eyes so you can't see,
This very hour you must go with me
O death, have mercy,
Jes' spare me over another year.
O young man if you wanta be wise
Jes' 'pent an' b'lieve an' be baptized.
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What we seem to have here are two different refrains:
Oh, death is awful,
Oh, death is awful,
Oh, death is awful
Spare me over another year.
and
O death, have mercy,
O death, have mercy,
O death,
Jes' spare me over another year.
Following this logic we can also see that a possible third title might have been, "O Death, Have Mercy."
And we have two different verse structures-- two lines, or four. One might speculate that the four-line stanza might have indicated that in the grip of emotion (or the Holy Spirit), many lines might have been run together on any occasion, as additional verses would be recalled or created. You hear this style of expression in pentecostal music today.
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It would also seem from the context that "death" means the character Death-- a being, not death as a process. Death is addressed.... so, Death (the being) is awful.
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Regarding how the Lomaxes saw the singer, and song variants, the notes indicate this:
This was our second visit to Livingston, Alabama. Hard as we had worked ourselves and Mrs. Tartt on our previous visit, we realized that we had barely scratched the surface, so far as recording the songs of the region was concerned, though Mrs. Tartt had reams of Texts written down. Mrs. Ruby Pickens Tartt was again our chief assistant, guide and ramrod. In the few days that we were working around Livingston she drove her car nearly two hundred miles, looking up singers, and bringing them to the microphone, from far and near, over hill, over dale, through mud and stream. She has the confidence of the community including the Negroes whom she has never refused help, and this was an opportunity for them to show her their appreciation. Doc Reed and Vera Hall, cousins who have sung together for many years, are her most dependables. They are good singers of the old style spirituals, are perfect in "seconding"- "following after" they call it,- and they know many songs. Not having book-learning they store in the back of their heads innumerable tunes and stanzas. Vera Hall is especially quick to "catch up" a new tune. And if they do not understand completely the text, they are ingenious in supplying substitutes, either from other spirituals or from their own feelings of the moment. These two, however, unlike old Uncle Rich Brown, do not substitute jargon; their texts mean something, if not always what the original words meant.
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