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STLT#157, Step by Step the Longest March
If it seemed like I phoned it in a bit the last few days, well, you’re not wrong. The truth is, I could blame it on being sick, but mostly I blame it on my personal fears that I wouldn’t treat the freedom songs from the African American spirituals tradition well – and in fact… Continue reading
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STLT#156, Oh, Freedom
When I started this practice, I intended to talk about what was on my mind, what the song brought up for me. As it has evolved, I have incorporated a lot of history, literary criticism, and musicology, along with my thoughts and feelings. My thought today is that this song, thought to be a response to… Continue reading
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STLT#155, Circle ‘Round for Freedom
This is a great piece – best sung a capella, with three strong song leaders to help fill in the rich harmony. I often forget about it, this sweet song written by cantor Linda Hirschhorn, and I’m not sure why. So when it comes up in conversation or I hear a snippet of it, I… Continue reading
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STLT#154, No More Auction Block for Me
Today’s post will be very short, as I have succumbed finally to the respiratory crud going around. But I do have a thing or two to say about this song, which I could not sing, physically or emotionally. First, I am glad we have a chance to see some of the less cheerful, less hopeful… Continue reading
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STLT#153, Oh, I Woke Up This Morning
Oh the things you learn when you challenge your assumptions… In late January, I co-led an interfaith service focused on resistance, which featured the support of the local AME Zion choir; thus, while music came from several sources, we did lean heavily on the gospel genre, and we chose this song as our sending call.… Continue reading
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STLT#152, Follow the Drinking Gourd
Hurrah for the Hymnal Commission, who noted at the bottom of the page that this was a code song used by the Underground Railroad, much like Wade in the Water and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, to communicate the map to freedom. I won’t go through the whole song – there are plenty of sites that… Continue reading
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STLT#151, I Wish I Knew How
I think I know why white people don’t sing this song well. I may be late to the party on this, but it dawned on me as I was singing: we don’t know what it’s like to NOT be free. Sure, we get close if we’re female, or queer, or live with a disability, or trans.… Continue reading
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STLT#150, All Whose Boast It Is
Oof. This is a complex lyric – three verses of a complex poem, “Stanzas on Freedom,” written by James Russell Lowell (one of the 19th century American Fireside Poets). It’s not even a terribly good poem – technically, his writing was good, but as Margaret Fuller wrote, “”his verse is stereotyped; his thought sounds no depth,… Continue reading
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STLT#149, Lift Every Voice and Sing
I once almost made a mistake with this hymn. It was spring 2011, and a small committee of Unitarian Universalists from four NY Capital Region congregations were planning our third joint service. We had moved to a new venue, which features an historic tracker organ, and we decided to do a hymn sing before the… Continue reading
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STLT#148, Let Freedom Span Both East and West
Welcome to the Freedom section of our hymnal, perhaps one of the most fraught sections – not because the songs aren’t good, or important to preserve, but because there’s no guiding language in the hymnal that helps us use the music with due diligence, and thus we wind up with misappropriation and colonization and a… Continue reading
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links
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