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Choose You A Seat 'N' Set Down
Traditional Spiritual
ARTIST: Dock Reed and Vera Hall of Livingston, AL from John Lomax 1937 in Our Singing Country - A Second Volume of American Ballads and Folk Songs By John A. Lomax
SHEET MUSIC: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/our-singing-country/our-
singing-country%20-%200134.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=eHvdOA0yHdQC&pg=PA406&dq=funeral+ballads&as_brr=3&cd=5#
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CATEGORY: Traditional and Public Domain Gospel;
DATE: Probably 1800s; 1937
RECORDING INFO: Choose You A Seat 'N' Set Down
Our Singing Country - A Second Volume of American Ballads and Folk Songs By John A. Lomax
OTHER NAMES: "Choose You A Seat And Set Down"
RELATED TO: "Long White Robe" Brown Collection
SOURCES: Our Singing Country - A Second Volume of American Ballads and Folk Songs By John A. Lomax
NOTES: "Choose You A Seat 'N' Set Down" is a spiritual collected from Dock Reed and Vera Hall of Livingston, AL by John Lomax in 1937. It appears in Our Singing Country and is related to "Long White Robe" in the Brown Colection of NC Folklore.
CHOOSE YOU A SEAT 'N' SET DOWN- Dock Reed, Henry Reed, Vera Hall, Livingston, Ala., 1937.
An ex-slave, an old Negro woman, talked to us of her life and her songs: "I been drug about and fut through the shackles, till I done forgot some my children's names. My husband died and left me with nine children, and none of dem could full the others out of the fire iff en they fell in. I had mo'n that, but some come here dead and some didn't. Dey ain't a graveyard in this here settlement where I ain't got children buried and I got children dead in Birmingham and Bessemer.
I mos' blind now and I can't hear good and I ain't never read no verse in no Bible in my life 'cause I can't read. I sets 'cross the road here from the church and can't go 'cause I'm cripple and blind but I hear 'em singin'."
1. O Lordy, jes' give me a long white robe!
O Lordy, jes' give me a long white robe!
Chorus: In de heaven, choose you a seat 'n' set down;
In de heaven, choose you a seat 'n' set down;
Trouble over, choose you a seat 'n' set down;
Trouble over, choose you a seat 'n' set down.
2. O Jesus, was my mother there?
O Jesus, was my mother there?
3 O Jesus, jes' give me a starry crown,
O Jesus, jes' give me a starry crown.
4 O Lordy, was my brother there?
O Lordy, was my brother there?
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