Songs:Old Time Religion (123674)

Trivia

Curt Bouterse - Old Time Religion. As a singer of folksongs and a student of the oral process, I often wonder why some songs succeed and others don't, why some retain their structure and others adapt to their environment. Everybody knows the old spiritual; I've sung it all my life. With its simple format and substitutions of "the Hebrew children," "Paul and Silas," it is easy to sing and can go on forever. But, as a preacher's kid, each different subject evoked the more complex story, and I wondered what would happen if the allusions were made more evident. One day, as I played the tune on the banjer, I created a "B" strain and the words "came tumbling down." The Bible-story verses could be continued indefinitely. The last two, New Testament, verses are pre-existing, floating quatrains from the shape-note tradition.