Politically incorrect nonsense

This morning in church the song leader choose one of my long time favorites from a new hymnal. "Lord I Want To Be A Christian."

This version was written in four-part harmony and listed as an "American Folk Song."

Baloney! According to Wikipedia this song was written in the 1750s Virginia by African-American slaves exposed to the teaching of evangelist Samuel Davies.

Until recent times it has been billed as a Negro Spiritual. Now, I have to assume, the advocates of political correctness somehow dream that the song can be sung in 4:4 time, four part harmony with all the words in proper English rather than how the original slaves sang it in the dialect of the day. They ruined it!

Your columnist started singing in church choir while in high school. At first chance I joined the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel Choir in college at the Academy and did that for four years. A highlight was singing one Easter morning at the Red Rocks open air Cathedral at Colorado Springs. Then over the years I joined and sang with several different civilian church and military chapel choirs wherever we happened to be stationed. In allhonestly I was never a great voice or soloist but simply enjoyed the four part harmony and comradery of being part of a good choir.

In my experience the best way to sing a Negro Spiritual is probably how the slaves that put together the beloved "Lord I want To Be A Christian" did it. The song is led by a strong voice, probably baritone, who sings out as leader and all the other members harmonize with the lead voice. "Lord I want to be a Christian in-a-my heart" then several voices echo "In-a my heart" while the lead and the majority of the choir holds the note, in harmony, of "heart." Many voices blending together it is a wonderful sound to my ear.

I would urge you dear reader to attend a black church at first opportunity and listen to their choir rejoice in singing Christian music. Catch it on TV or radio if you can. If you are lucky you will enjoy them blending their voices on a true spiritual to really experience the beauty of that style of music. I'm sorry but white choirs just can't seem to do justice to true American spirituals.

Brought to America in chains sentenced to a lifetime of slavery it must have been a hard life mentally and physically. No escape conceivable, just day-to-day living. The message of Christ and a higher power than one's self truly must have been a great comfort to those trapped people.

No wonder they could sing of hope for a more perfect existence after death. Unlettered and self-taught in music it would only be natural to blend their voices with whoever stepped forth in song as a leader.

I'm reminded of my own contemporaries who were captured and became prisoners of war in Vietnam. Reading intelligence reports while on active duty and later books written post release from the Hanoi Hilton I have gleaned the fact that those who had a personal faith in a Higher Power survived the ordeal of prison life much better than those who had no faith.

After their return, the suicide rate of those who had no faith was many times higher than those who had a personal faith. Interestingly the two groups, faith or no faith, separated themselves on the airplanes carrying them out of Hanoi and had little contact with each other.

Not too long before the truce was signed ending the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese allowed the American POW's to gather together in communal living instead of the isolation of two or three men to a prison cell or total isolation as had been the practice for years. Then word leaked out that the POW's had formed a choir. Aha! -- I knew instantly that their choir director had to be Major Quincy Collins, who had been our choir director years before at the Academy.

I knew that Quincy had been shot down in his F-105 and had been spotted from time to time being led down jungle paths roped at the neck with other shot down aircrew members. Then he disappeared completely from any intelligence reports that I had access to. What a feeling of hope that Quincy had made it when the news leaked of a POW choir!

Incidentally the final performance by the POW choir, and yes it was led by Quincy, was at the White House in a reunion in the POW's honor by President Richard Nixon. No sheet music, no musical instrument accompaniment all done a cappella just as the slaves in the south did it centuries before.

Political correctness run amuck.

Why not keep the proud heritage of the Negro Spiritual alive just as those proud slaves performed their heartfelt songs? "Lord I want be like Jesus, In-a-my heart, In-a my heart (In-a my heart)."

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail