Jump to content

Kumbaya

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 216.85.53.66 (talk) at 20:11, 31 August 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Also spelled kum ba yah, cumbayah, kumbayah, and probably a few other ways. If you look in a good songbook you'll find the word helpfully translated as "come by here," with the note that the song is "from Angola, Africa." The "come by here" part I'll buy. But Angola? Someone's doubtin', Lord, for the obvious reason that kumbaya is way too close to English to have a strictly African origin. More likely, I told my assistant Jane, it comes from some African-English pidgin or creole--that is, a combination of languages. (A pidgin is a linguistic makeshift that enables two cultures to communicate for purposes of trade, etc.; a creole is a pidgin that has become a culture's primary language.) Sure enough, when we look into the matter, we find this conjecture is on the money. Someone's grinnin', Lord, kumbaya.

Kumbaya apparently originated with the Gullah, an African-American people living on the Sea Islands and adjacent coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. (The best known Sea Island is Hilton Head, the resort area.) Having lived in isolation for hundreds of years, the Gullah speak a dialect that most native speakers of English find unintelligible on first hearing but that turns out to be heavily accented English with other stuff mixed in. The dialect appears in Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus" stories, to give you an idea what it sounds like. In the 1940s the pioneering linguist Lorenzo Turner showed that the Gullah language was actually a creole consisting of English plus a lot of words and constructions from the languages of west Africa, the Gullahs' homeland. Although long scorned as an ignorant caricature of English, Gullah is actually a language of considerable charm, with expressions like (forgive my poor attempt at expressing these phonetically) deh clin, dawn (literally "day clean"); troot mout, truthful person ("truth mouth"), and tebble tappuh, preacher ("table tapper").

And of course there's kumbayah. According to ethnomusicologist Thomas Miller, the song we know began as a Gullah spiritual. Some recordings of it were made in the 1920s, but no doubt it goes back earlier. Published versions began appearing in the 1930s. It's believed an American missionary couple taught the song to the locals in Angola, where its origins were forgotten. The song was then rediscovered in Angola and brought back here in time for the folksinging revival of the 50s and 60s. People might have thought the Gullahs talked funny, but we owe them a vote of thanks. Can you imagine sitting around the campfire singing, "Oh, Lord, come by here"?


"Kumbaya" (also spelled Kum Ba Yah) is a song composed by Reverend Marvin V. Frey (1918 – 1992) in the 1930s in New York City. Originally titled "Come By Here", it first appeared in "Revival Choruses of Marvin V. Frey", a lyric sheet printed in Portland, Oregon in 1939. In 1946 the song returned from Africa with a missionary family, who toured America singing the song with its now world famous angolan text "Kum Ba Yah".

Sometimes the song is believed to be an original spiritual, 19th century African American folk song, originating among the Gullah, a group descended from enslaved Africans living on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, but there is no evidence of the song before Frey's publication.

The song enjoyed newfound popularity during the folk revival of the 1960s, largely due to Joan Baez' 1962 recording of the song, and became associated with the civil rights struggles of that decade.

The song is copyrighted material from The Croton Press, Croton-on-Hudson.

Lyrics

Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s laughing, Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s crying, Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s praying, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s praying, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s praying, Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s singing, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s singing, Lord, kumbaya!
Someone’s singing, Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya!
O Lord, kumbaya!

Another version of the song:

Kum ba yah, my Lord, Kum ba yah!
Kum ba yah, my Lord, Kum ba yah!
Kum ba yah, my Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh Lord! Kum ba yah!
Hear me crying, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Hear me crying, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Hear me crying, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh Lord! Kum ba yah!
Hear me singing, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Hear me singing, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Hear me singing, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh Lord! Kum ba yah!
Hear me praying, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Hear me praying, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Hear me praying, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh Lord! Kum ba yah!
Oh I need you, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh I need you, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh I need you, Lord, Kum ba yah!
Oh Lord! Kum ba yah!

It is a standard campfire song in Scouting, YMCA, the Indian Guides, and others. Though the song was originally associated with unity and closeness, it is now usually referenced with ironic intent today. For example, "Although Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens will play together in 2005, don't expect them to be singing Kumbaya."

This song was once used on a Toys "R" Us commercial when "Geoffrey the Giraffe" sung it, but changed the lyrics to "Somebody's playing with toys."

Eek! the Cat often exclaimed "Kumbaya!"

This was a tune commonly used in Catholic "folk" Mass of the 1970's.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Kumbaya&oldid=73087325"