I remember an exasperated Sunday-school teacher as we kids did mocking motions to Ill Fly Away. With its catchy tune and heavenward look, the song held little sway over me. All I wanted to do was flap my arms like a bird. My life was not hard or sad; it was enjoyable and full of good things and protection and warmth and loving people. But I can now imagine a congregation in Alan Lomaxs Mississippi Delta, a congregation of sharecroppers and slave descendants in the 1930s. A congregation of men who must call the plantation owners ten-year-old son Mister, while he calls them Boy. A congregation of orphaned children and widowed women and abandoned wives and disillusioned men. A congregation of men and women of sorrows. A congregation of human beings barely clinging to their humanity. And theyre singing Ill Fly Away in the tiny clapboard church, and theyre clapping and stomping out the beat. And theyre waiting- waiting for some glad day when they cross the golden shore, waiting for Sunday to come, waiting for the Man of Sorrows whose mercy knows no bounds. -Stephen Nichols Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us About Suffering and Salvation.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:55:50 +0000
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