Spiritual Songs Blogs

"Swing Low Sweet Chariot" is an African American spiritual song in which a slave is singing. The slaves are all waiting for the "Chariot" or higher power to set them free. The song is written by the negro community prior to the beginning of the Civil War. It is also know as a negro folk song. The chariot represents freedom, or it also can represent God shining down from the heavens to bring the slaves up to him, where they are free. The slaves are envisioning their freedom by seeing things around them, for example the Jordan River. The views of this song and Henry David Thoreau are very similar. They both were obviously against slavery and they believed that there should be freedom. Henry Thoreau was different because he fought for it, and the slaves did not really fight for it, but they hoped for it.

"Go Down Moses" is another African American spiritual song that the slaves sung as they were working and also during the prayer times. It is a song about freedom of the slaves who are just waiting for that day where Moses goes down and they will all be saved. Egypt in the song could stand for the slaves states that were present before the Civil War (enotes). I think that the views of this song and Henry David Thoreau are the same because again the song is about slavery and both the groups of African Americans and Thoreau were against civil disobedience and cruelty or violence, both which came along with slavery. The views are different in the fact that the slaves mainly rely on God and they use a lot of references towards the bible whereas Henry  Thoreau relied more on his opinions and his individualism during the time.

The last song, "Keep Your Hands on the Plow," is another African American spiritual song. It was also during the time of slavery prior to the Civil War. Basically in the first stanza of the song, a hand is being placed on the bible, is how I took it, and God is leading them. It says keep holding on to the plow, which I think means keep hoping. The slaves never lost hope because all they wanted at the time was freedom. Again this song and Thoreau's ideas are similar because they both were against slavery and violence. They were both very anxious for change. I did not really find any differences in the two opinions.

"Go Down, Moses Text of the Poem." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Enotes.com. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.enotes.com/go-down/text-poem>.


Keep Your Hands On The Plow - GospelSongLyrics.Org." GospelSongLyrics.org - Lyrics and Music to All Your Favorite Gospel Songs. GospelSongLyrics. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.gospelsonglyrics.org/songs/keep_your_hands_on_the_plow.html>.

"Swing Low Sweet Chariot." Enotes.com. Enotes.com. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.enotes.com/swing-low>.