"Oh! Let My People Go"
See also: Songs of the Underground Railroad| "Oh! Let My People Go" |
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Cover of sheet music, 1862 |
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| Music by | Traditional |
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| Published | 1862 |
| Form | Negro spiritual |
| Original artist | Contrabands |
Although usually thought of as a spiritual, the earliest recorded use of the song was as a rallying anthem for the Contrabands at Fort Monroe sometime before July 1862. Early authorities presumed it was composed by them. Sheet music was soon after published, titled "Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands" and arranged by Horace Waters. L.C. Lockwood, chaplain of the Contrabands, stated in the sheet music the song was from Virginia, dating from about 1853. The opening verse, as recorded by Lockwood, is:
- The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go.
- If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go.
- Oh! go down, Moses,
- Away down to Egypt's land,
- And tell King Pharaoh
- To let my people go.
Read more about this topic: Go Down Moses
Famous quotes containing the words people go and/or people:
“Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“All you of Earth are idiots!... First was your firecracker, a harmless explosive. Then your hand grenade. They begin to kill your own people a few at a time. Then the bomb. Then a larger bomb, many people are killed at one time. Then your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb—split the atom. Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself.”
—Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1922–1978)