Black spirituals are true folk songs that were passed down by word of mouth over many years, with various versions being developed, before they were eventually written down. The texts reflect this variety, as there’s no one “official” version. The arrangement I’m using as a reference for the spiritual “Wade in de Water” has stripped-down lyrics, so that’s what I’m using as the for this commentary. Even with the limited text used, though, there’s still a lot to say! (Betcha you couldn’t have guessed that one.) Bear in mind that a lot of commentary on any type of folk song is at least partly supposition and hypothesizing, as we don’t have access to the authors. We don’t even know their names.
This is yet another of those songs everybody sings and nobody thinks about. Come on, now. Have you ever asked yourself this question? I sure hadn’t.
Of all the spirituals I’ve sung with my own choir, this one, with its slow pace and minor key, conveys the feelings of an oppressed people the most strongly. It’s not just a series of complaints or calls for help, though. There’s a lot of scriptural truth packed into it.
The simplified explanation of how black spirituals came about goes like this: slaves heard about Christianity after arriving in the US and, especially on the southern plantations, came up with sung versions of those teachings that gave them hope of a better life, expressed their longings for deliverance, and often served as rhythmic work songs. All of this is perfectly true but raises further questions: how did this “hearing about Christianity” come about? And why, if you think about it, would slaves adopt the religion of those who had enslaved them? Wouldn’t they see that religion as massive hypocrisy on the part of the slave owners? There’s also a tendency, which I have unfortunately shared, to think of spirituals as rather primitive. But that tendency is clearly mistaken: these are songs with deep meaning, displaying a breadth of Scriptural knowledge. To quote a modern African-American scholar and preacher,