Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Our school had its Black History Month program yesterday, and I sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” a “United States African-American Negro spiritual song,” according to Wikipedia. It wasn’t my best moment at the microphone by any means, but it’ll have to do. :P Mr. Hawke (who gave me good reviews!) recorded it, so I may post it here later — the audio, at least… and you can see it here.

The program itself was very entertaining and informative. Our award-winning Step Team performed, as did the school choir — very good jobs on both accounts! Also, My fellow English teacher performed a skit with her fourth-block class, who assisted her in reading facts about Black history, as well as poetry, literature selections, and even rap songs from African Americans throughout American history. During the skit, the students who weren’t reading in the microphone were throwing paper, listening to iPods, and talking on cell phones, all while their teacher ran around trying to get them under control. (Not too far-fetched, huh? :P)

Back to my part (which came first thing!), I haven’t sung “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” on stage since my days at Laurel Park High School. I used to sing it for my eleventh-grade (American Lit.) students to introduce the literature unit of that period every semester, and they suggested that I participate in the annual event. I believe that was in 1998, my first year of teaching, but it could’ve been the following year. I carried on that tradition for the length of my years there — until 2001 — and loved it every time!

Well, the lyrics to the song I sang are listed differently on different sites, but I’ve always only sang two verses of it. And I didn’t even sing one of those like I meant to! EEK! I switched around the pronouns in the first line of the second verse. (I switched the “I” and the “you.”) And I had to make the last verse make sense by changing yet another pronoun. (I made it “they’re coming too.”)

Anyways, I started off the song really slowly with a chorus and then sped it up for verse 1, another chorus, verse 2, and yet another chorus. Then, I sang a slower chorus at the end again. (I believe that Joan Baez did a similar version of the song, but I haven’t researched it.) I sing it a capella (or without accompaniment).

By all accounts I’ve seen online, the song was written by an ex-slave named by Wallis Willis, but all of the literature books I’ve used attribute it to the African-American slaves, in general, as a “Spiritual.” In American Lit., we talk about how the Spirituals were code songs. They were spiritual in nature on the surface to avoid controversy with their slave owners, but also very physical in nature underneath. They lamented the slaves’ chains and cried for freedom, not just one day in the afterlife, but also here on earth.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
by Wallis Willis
(public domain)

Chorus:
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for’ to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for’ to carry me home

I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Coming for’ to carry me home
A band of angels coming after me
Coming for’ to carry me home

(Chorus)

If you get there before I do
Coming for’ to carry me home
Tell all my friends I’m coming too
Coming for’ to carry me home

(Chorus)

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