: The Land of the Black Mountain: The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro by Prance Gerald Wyon Reginald - Montenegro Description and travel

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 265

INDEX TO SONGS 271

NEGRO WORKADAY SONGS

BACKGROUND RESOURCES IN NEGRO SONG AND WORK

To discover and present authentic pictures of the Negro's folk background as found in his workaday songs is a large and promising task of which there are many phases. Here are spontaneous products of the Negro's workaday experiences and conflicts. Here are reflections of his individual strivings and his group ways. Here are specimens of folk art and creative effort close to the soil. Here are new examples of the Negro's contributions to the American scene. Here is important material for the newer scientific interest which is taking the place of the old sentimental viewpoint. And here is a mine of descriptive and objective data to substitute for the emotional and subjective attitudes of the older days.

It is a day of great promise in the United States when both races, North and South, enter upon a new era of the rediscovery of the Negro and face the future with an enthusiasm for facts, concerning both the newer creative urge and the earlier background sources. Concerning the former, Dr. Alain Locke recently has said: "Whoever wishes to see the Negro in his essential traits, in the full perspective of his achievement and possibilities, must seek the enlightenment of that self-portraiture which the present development of the Negro culture offers." One of the best examples of that self-portraiture is that of the old spirituals, long neglected, but now happily the subject of a new race dedication and appreciation. Now comes another master index of race temperament and portrayal, as found in some of the Negro's newer creations. No less important, from the viewpoint of sheer originality and poetic effort as well as of indices of traits and possibilities, are the seemingly unlimited mines of workaday songs, weary blues, and black man ballads. In a previous volume we presented a sort of composite picture from two hundred songs gathered two decades ago and interpreted with something of prophetic evaluation. In this volume of Negro Workaday Songs is presented a deeper mine of source material, rich in self-portraiture and representative of the workaday Negro.

Ev'ywhere I look this, Ev'ywhere I look this mo'nin', Looks like rain.

I got rainbow Tied 'round my shoulder, Ain't gonna rain, Lawd, ain't gonna rain.

In addition to the poetic imagery in this seemingly unconscious motor-minded product, one may glimpse evidences of simple everyday experience, wishful thought, childlike faith, workaday stolidity, physical satisfaction, and subtle humor. But he can find still more humor and experience, with a good bit of metaphor thrown in for good measure, in the "feet rollin'" stanza of another wanderer's song of the road:

I done walk till, Lawd, I done walk till Feet's gone to rollin', Jes' lak a wheel, Lawd, jes' lak a wheel.

Resourcefulness, humor, defense mechanism, imagination, all might be found in the spectacle of a group of Negroes singing over and over again on a hot July day the refreshing lines,

Oh, next winter gonna be so cold, Oh, next winter gonna be so cold, Oh, next winter gonna be so cold, Fire can't warm you, be so cold.

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