Lyr Req: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

Subject: Lyr Req: SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESSS CHIL
From: PaulBobbyBuzz
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 01:49 PM

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESSS CHILD
Lots of versions out there. Does anybody have the original, traditional lyrics?
I've got Van morrison's, and I've sen several others, but having trouble finding what would be the original.   Thanks         pbb

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESSS CHIL
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 01:51 PM

http://ingeb.org/spiritua/sometime.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESSS CHIL
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 01:52 PM

http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/sometimes_i_fell.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESSS CHIL
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 02:35 PM

Lyrics to several versions and discussion of this traditional song right here at Mudcat. Motherless Child

Always look here first.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESSS CHIL
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 03:06 PM

It's easy to check for spirituals in Mudcat's own African American Spirituals permathread, using the handy INDEX. In fact, there are two different threads for this song, both linked in that index.   (The index will soon be updated to include links to all the songs listed further down in the permathread. You can find songs listed in that part of the thread, using your browser's FIND IN PAGE function.)

There's another very similar song with a different tune, that was just posted HERE.

As to origin-- spirituals were created ad hoc and anonymously. The earliest versions in print are simply as collected by one or another transcriber. And there are still songs being transcribed into notation in our time, that were handed down orally from slavery times.

There are no "authoritative" versions of any one song, since a key aspect of the genre in its day was spontaneous versifying and/or the use of various commonly-used verses that could be dropped into just about any song. On the day a song was transcribed, one sees, frozen in time, what was sung on the day the song was collected. It's entirely possible that the singers may have felt some reluctance to to comply with a request for songs, and may have offered as little as would satisfy the song collector. So it might have been a very different song on another day. Also, often the songs were much longer than collected-- used as work songs all day in the field, one can assume additional verses popped into being. You are free to continue this tradition in our own time, and create verses yourself.

~Susan