Origins of Two Christmas Spirituals
History of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “I Wonder as I Wander”
Dec 15, 2008
Song roused and soothed the poor who first labored on America’s plantations and hard scrabble farms. From African American slaves who worked the fields of the South came one of the country’s favorite Christmas spirituals, “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” From Appalachia, where Scotch-Irish families worked the land, came the haunting song, “I Wonder as I Wander.”
Neither authors nor composers are known for these songs. Both were handed down as folk songs, passing from generation to generation.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Go tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere,
Go tell it on the mountain,
Our Jesus Christ is born.
(Chorus from “Go Tell It on the Mountain”)
This song originated among African American slaves. It might have been lost if not for the work of an African American church choir director from Nashville, Tennessee, named John Wesley Work. Shortly after the Civil War, Work, began gathering the songs of the former slaves as a way of helping his congregants understand their ancestors.
Work’s collections soon made their way to nearby Fisk College, where the Fisk Jubilee Singers were touring the world with their arrangements of African American spirituals.
Work’s son and grandson followed him as collectors of Black spirituals, as well as musicians in their own right. The Works are credited with saving hundreds of African American spirituals, including “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” from being lost,
With the help of Work’s brother Frederick, John Work II arranged “Go Tell It on the Mountain” for the Fisk Jubilee Singers. When the Fisk choir debuted the song in 1880, audiences around the world were brought to tears. In 1909 it was published in a book of Black spirituals by Thomas P. Fenner.
The musical version we know today was arranged by John Work III and published in 1940.
I Wonder as I Wander
I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor on’ry people like you and like I…
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
(First verse of “I Wonder as I Wander”)
Another collector of folk songs, John Jacob Niles, is credited with saving this song, which he first heard being sung by a little girl in the Appalachian Mountains.
Songs springing from the religious culture of Appalachia have been called “white spirituals.” Where few people could read or write, folk songs were passed down through an oral tradition.
Niles began collecting the folk songs of Appalacia in 1892 when he was only 15. He went on to become a well-known opera singer and author of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” But he eventually returned to his first love of collecting folk music.
Niles is said to have heard a young girl singing “I Wonder as I Wander” in a small North Carolina town. He was immediately taken with the tune, which he had never heard before. He asked the girl to repeat the song as he wrote down the words. She told Niles she had learned the song from her mother. Neither Niles, nor anyone else was ever able to uncover the author.
Before his death in 1980, Niles published several books that included his collected folk songs and his own songs.
Both "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "I Wonder as I Wander" are among America's best loved Christmas carols today.
The Twelve Days of Christmas and the two popular carols "The First Noel" and "Silent Night" also have interesting histories.
Sources:
Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, by Ace Collins, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2001.
Come Let Us Adore Him: Stories Behind the Most Cherished Christmas Hymns, by Robert J. Morgan, J. Countryman, Nashville, Tennessee, 2005.
Christmas Songs Made in America: Favorite Holiday Melodies and the Stories of Their Origins, by Albert J. Menendez and Shirley C. Menendez, Cumberland House Publishing, Inc., Nashville, TN, 1999.
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